Many hospitals in the West are heavily in debt

In the Western provinces, many medical staff are upset because district medical centers and regional hospitals are "deeply" in debt.

An Phu Medical Center owes many pharmaceutical companies so they do not provide medicine, and patients go to the clinic but do not have medicine - Photo: BUU DAU

Why is this happening?

Medical center in debt, people lack medicine

Tuoi Tre news source said that Tran De Regional Medical Center, Can Tho still owes over 49.5 billion VND in unpaid debts.

Of which, the debt for COVID-19 prevention and control is 27.3 billion VND; the debt for public sanitation services is 1.6 billion VND; the debt for medicine, chemicals, and medical supplies is over 13.5 billion VND; the debt for elevator repair is 16.5 million VND; the debt for ambulance repair is 66.9 million VND; the debt for testing machine bulbs is 8.8 million VND; the debt for backup generator gasoline is 6.2 million VND and the debt for late payment of preferential occupational allowances is about 6.7 billion VND.

A pharmacist working at the Tran De Regional Medical Center said that recently, due to a lack of medicine, chemicals for testing, and a broken biochemical testing machine with no money to repair it, the hospital had no choice but to let patients go out to buy medicine or transfer them to another hospital. "It's very difficult, we hope that the authorities will soon overcome and handle the long-standing backlog," this person suggested.

In An Giang , the provincial Department of Health has established an inspection team to verify the accusation that An Phu Medical Center owes more than 10 billion VND, leading to a shortage of medicine for medical examination and treatment.

According to documents obtained by Tuoi Tre, the minutes of the meeting between the inspection team and An Phu Medical Center show that the debt for medicine provided by the medical center director and the finance and accounting department is owed to 130 companies, totaling more than 17 billion VND. After comparing the amount that the Social Insurance needs to pay for health insurance medicine, the amount the center still owes to pharmaceutical companies is over 8 billion VND.

Due to unpaid debts, pharmaceutical companies have not supplied drugs to the center, leading to drug shortages, most notably from September 2024 until now.

"Many poor people with health insurance traveled nearly 30km from the Cambodian border to An Phu Medical Center to see a doctor, but after the examination, they had no medicine, so they reacted very badly.

This has been happening since the beginning of 2024 until now, the main reason is that the medical center still owes many pharmaceutical companies so they do not provide medicine. Since then, the number of patients coming to the hospital for examination has also been sparser, reducing the income of the staff" - Doctor C., working at An Phu Medical Center, was upset.

Many clinics spring up, but hospitals are "unoccupied"?

Mr. Ha Minh Hiep, director of Tri Ton Medical Center (An Giang), said that Tri Ton Hospital (the old Tri Ton District Medical Center including the Preventive Medicine Center and Tri Ton District General Hospital, later merged into Tri Ton Medical Center) belongs to the 40% autonomous group, the rest is self-balancing, but currently the revenue is not enough to cover expenses.

The main reason is that after the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of patients coming to the hospital for medical examination and treatment has not recovered to the same level as before.

"Health insurance is all over the place, whoever has money will go to the top level. After 2023, there will be a shortage of medicine in hospitals so people will not go to the hospital anymore.

In addition, the clinics that have sprung up around the hospital have absorbed all the patients coming to the hospital for examination and treatment, so the number of patients coming to the hospital has also decreased sharply. These are the reasons leading to the budget deficit that has not paid for professional incentives for Tri Ton medical staff and employees," said Mr. Hiep.

A representative of Tri Ton Medical Center said that the entire unit has 358 officers and employees. "Currently, there is a shortage of two months of job incentives, November and December 2024, about 960 million VND, due to unbalanced balance.

As for the missing allowances for July, August and September, I am waiting for the health insurance payment from the provincial Social Insurance to calculate. Therefore, we are initially balancing the salaries for our employees," added the representative of Tri Ton Medical Center.

Similar to Tri Ton, many medical staff of Tan Chau General Hospital (An Giang) also reported that the hospital has not paid preferential allowances for the profession recently. A leader of Tan Chau Regional General Hospital said that due to the transfer from a district-level unit to a provincial-level hospital, there was a shortage.

Currently, the unit has been a group 2 autonomous public service unit for seven years now (self-sufficient in investment and regular expenses), so every year there is a shortage of money to pay for career incentives for the brothers.

The entire hospital has 289 staff members. In 2022, there was a partial shortage of job incentives, in 2023 it was okay, and in 2024, the salary increase caused a greater shortage of job incentives.

"From mid-2024 until now, the unit has not paid professional incentives to hospital staff and employees, but only tried to pay salaries to hospital staff and employees. The unit is trying to ask the Provincial Department of Health to move the hospital down to the group 3 autonomous public service unit group," he said.

Not enough money to pay the preferential allowance

An official working at the Tran De Regional Medical Center said that he has not yet received the preferential allowance according to Decree 05 of the Government. Previously, he and many officials and employees working at the center signed a collective petition to Can Tho leaders and relevant agencies requesting early payment of preferential allowance to about 200 people.

According to the petition, public health units in the old Soc Trang province have been fully paid preferential allowances according to Decree 05. However, the Tran De Regional Health Center has not yet been resolved.

According to the Can Tho Department of Health, the debt of preferential allowances for the profession is reasonable. The reason is that the unit previously lacked 35% of the salary reform fund, so it has not yet paid the policy regime to the officials of the center and medical station.

In 2025, the Provincial People's Council and the Provincial People's Committee of Soc Trang approved a resolution to allocate funds to resolve difficulties for a number of self-financed public health service units of groups 2 and 3, including the Tran De Regional Medical Center. Because the two units received the budget at the end of June, before the July 1st date of administrative unit merger.

Due to many procedures, Tran De Regional Health Center could not transfer the above funds to pay for policies and regimes for the staff of the center and health station. This responsibility belongs to Tran De Regional Health Center.

KHAC TAM - BUU DAU

Source: https://tuoitre.vn/nhieu-benh-vien-o-mien-tay-no-dam-dia-20250924225525217.htm