When hospital and medical facility leaders do not know the real price of drugs and medical equipment they purchase during the bidding process, it will lead to two risks and consequences.
First, patients will have to bear unnecessary costs. And then, those responsible at hospitals and medical facilities are at risk of facing legal situations as we have seen in the past.
In fact, the new Bidding Law, which has come into effect, has partly resolved some difficulties in the procurement and bidding of drugs, chemicals, medical equipment and supplies of hospitals and medical facilities nationwide, contributing to improving the quality of medical examination and treatment for people.
However, the bidding for drugs and medical equipment still has "bottlenecks", leading to "a shortage of drugs and medical supplies in some hospitals" as admitted by Mr. Hoang Cuong, Deputy Director of the Department of Planning and Finance (Ministry of Health).
One of the reasons is that Vietnam, up to this point, still does not have a database on the prices of goods imported into Vietnam, making it easy for budget estimates to "slip" in price, leading to the paradox that hospital leaders cannot know the real price of drugs as mentioned.
This “bottleneck” will likely be resolved soon. Recently, the Government has also assigned the Ministry of Health the task of continuing to review and propose amendments within its authority to the content that is still stuck in the implementation process, or is not suitable to reality.
In particular, the Prime Minister also assigned the ministry to take charge of developing a handbook on the process of purchasing drugs and medical equipment in a hands-on manner so that hospitals can refer to it for bidding and purchasing.
However, there is a “bottleneck” that the Government and the Ministry of Health find difficult to resolve, which is the lack of initiative and flexibility of localities, hospitals and medical facilities in bidding, leading to local problems. With the same mechanism, some places do well, while others complain about difficulties.
So while waiting for the Ministry of Health to continue to remove difficulties and issue instructions, localities, hospitals and medical facilities need to show initiative and flexibility in implementation.
