Thang Long General Hospital: A Breakthrough in Healthcare

The hospital was set up in 2004 with the preceder of the Rehabilitation and Convalescence Hospital, an unfamiliar model at that time due to people’s custom and limited socio-economic conditions. Therefore, it was transformed into the model of general hospital in 2005 when the harmonious combination of treatment and convalescence became a national development trend. This is a good basis for the Thang Long General Hospital to further develop on the direction of becoming one of good medical units in the region.

 

That determination has been proven since the first days of operations as the hospital’s board of directors had paid due attention to its architecture and scenery. Occupying a total of over 5,000 square metres, the Thang Long General Hospital is divided into two areas of treatment and convalescence with resort-shaped airy space. Treatment and convalescence wards were villa-shaped built, which were surrounded by green parks. The hospital now has 10 wards specializing in internal medicine, surgery, obstetrics, paediatrics, odento-maxillo-facial, ear-nose-throat, ophthalmology, rehabilitation, orthopaedics, aesthetics and traditional medicine.

 

In addition to convenient and modern infrastructure, each sickbed regularly has two hospital orderlies, the hospital is also equipped with modern equipment and facilities to foster efficiency and accuracy in health checkups and treatment including two bio-chemical machines, automatic testing, lighting system, respirators, anaesthetic machines and patient monitors. Patients get the results only 15 minutes after taking radiography.

One of the hospital’s priorities is to train professional, qualified and attentive medical staffs. With great efforts to recruit staffs, the hospital now has 76 permanent cadres and staffs, including three professors and doctorates and nine specialized doctors; and 41 professors, doctorates and specialized doctors who are regular coordinators. In addition to inviting leading professors and doctorates to work at the hospital in their specialty, the hospital pays attention to other services to serve patients, particularly, one-stop hospital fee collection mechanism, banning staffs from collecting any additional fees from patients in any forms, building professionalized styles, enhancing responsibility and creating speedy and the best conditions for patients to access to secure treatment services.

 

Thanks to its systematic and methodical investment plans, the Thang Long General Hospital has affirmed its prestige in health checkups and treatment despite its short-term operations. Regarding surgery, the hospital has successfully conducted surgeries of cystolith, gall-stone, HTT stomach pathology, entire stomach cutting, thyroid gland and goitre surgery, and tumour surgery. Regarding internal medicine, the hospital has been providing treatment services of temperature, malignance, heart failure, myocardium, cirrhosis, and chronic arthritis.

 

Ph.D and Doctor Le The Bieu, Director of the hospital said the characteristics of the Thang Long Hospital is that patients are often in bad condition when they are sent to the hospital. Since its first operations, the hospital has successfully conducted hard surgeries of hip-joint, cerebrovascular accident, kidney failure, hemiplegia, rheumatism. With such a success, the hospital has been attracting more and more patients not only from Hanoi but also from many other cities and provinces in the country. Particularly, the hospital has been assigned by the Ministry of Health to provide health checkups and health certificates for Vietnamese people who go to work abroad since April 2005. The hospital has to date provide health checkups to labourers to work in the U.S., Japan, South Korea, Malaysia and the Middle East, which has won labourers’ confidence with exact testing results. 

 

However, as similar as other hospitals, the Thang Long Hospital has been also encountering a lot of difficulties including the absence of a clear delineation of areas for private sector. For example, the Thang Long Hospital has the same functions and abilities as provincial general hospitals specializing in various diseases but is only classified as a district hospital, which has hindered specialized operations at the hospital particularly diagnosis, prescription, and health checkups for patients with health insurance. On the other hand, private hospitals have not yet been treated as equally as others in various fields of staff training, seminar and meeting, scientific research, join venture, voluntary and specialized cooperation with private and public hospitals. Public opinion is still prejudiced against private hospitals due to inadequate legal framework, which is the major reason why real investors are keen on while investing in such a risky sector.