The An Giang General Hospital is seen in An
Giang Province, located in southern Vietnam.
The developer of a new hospital in the southern
province of An Giang is taking its medicine after spending nearly US$60 million
on making it the biggest and most modern of its kind in the Mekong Delta.
The
VND1,306 billion ($58.3 million), ten-story An Giang General Hospital was
inaugurated in April, with 600 beds and modern equipment on a 13,000 square
meter land plot in the provincial capital of Long Xuyen.
The
modern hospital was upgraded and given a full facelift from an older, smaller
facility.
However,
as a multimillion-dollar clinic requires expensive operational costs, the board
of directors are struggling with the finances to keep it running.
The
hospital has a major air-conditioning system that brings cool air to every
single room and sickbed, and a number of escalators and elevators.
While its
facilities are convenient for everyone, the convenience stops when it comes to
footing the bill.
“With all
of the modern equipment in service, we pay VND100 million [$4,464] in power
costs per day, so the monthly electricity bill alone is VND3 billion
[$133,929],” the deputy director of the hospital, Nguyen Triet Hien, said.
An official directs a
patient to use the modern elevator at An Giang Hospital.
The director,
Nguyen Thi Hanh, added that they had to exercise thrift by “turning off some
lights, having only one elevator in service during office hours, and powering
off the air-conditioning system in several areas.”
“Even so,
the power bill is still six times higher than before,” she said.
Other
costs are also much higher than the old facility.
The
hospital now needs some VND6 billion ($267,857) a year to pay cleaning staff,
and nearly VND2 billion ($89,286) for security guards, not to mention wages for
the medical staff.
Director
Hanh admitted that the hospital’s monthly expense is usually more than VND10
billion ($446,429), compared to total revenue of between VND9 billion
($401,786) and VND10 billion.
But it is
not easy to increase revenue at a hospital.
The
number of patients failed to increase along with the facility’s amenity and
modernity.
The
clinic still receives some 800 to 900 inpatients on a daily basis, but cannot
charge them higher fees.
“Despite
the upgraded scale, An Giang Hospital is still a province-level infirmary, and
is therefore required to apply the same pricing scheme as before,” Tu Quoc
Tuan, director of the provincial health department, explained.
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