Vietnam preps for medical makeover
14-Oct-14, Reuters
With Vietnam's public hospitals stretched beyond their limits and private healthcare a fledgling sector, there's billions to be made courting deep-pocketed Vietnamese for medical treatment overseas.
It's a tidy niche that one former Vietnamese medical student carved out for herself. She made $3,200 a month - 20 times the average income of her peers - working the phones to earn hospitals in nearby Singapore a slice of the $2 billion that Vietnam hemorrhaged on overseas healthcare last year.
With that flight of overseas cash equivalent to 60 percent of state health spending, private operators both foreign and domestic are smelling opportunity in keeping that in Vietnam. Local conglomerate Vingroup is planning huge hospital expansion from next year.
Some 40,000 Vietnamese a year won't take their chances with the snaking queues, chronic bed shortages and overworked doctors at home. While Vietnam's medical spending as a percentage of the economy is the highest in Southeast Asia, it hasn't kept up with the population's demand for quality and timely medical care.