The family doctors in Viet Nam often struggle to make a buck. So they become creative in milking that last cent, often to the detriment to the patient’s health. VN doctors make money by doing procedures or selling medication. Most family physicians do not offer significant procedures and thus selling medication drives their profit. However in Viet Nam, all citizens can go to any pharmacy and buy medications like the all powerful med vancomycin without a prescription. That means physicians must compete against pharmacies for business. To circumvent all pharmacies, physicians sell their meds in nameless plastic baggies with pills that cover 2-3 weeks. This leaves the patient in a cloud of mystery about the medication and requires them to come back to the original physician for more.
What does this mean for the patient?
- Patients often leave with very little understanding of their current health.
- Continuum of care is often broken because patients seldom trust physicians knowing some doctors drive their work on profit.
- Patients do not go to physicians and self-medicate at local pharmacies causing incorrect use of antibiotics and dangerous meds.
- Many cannot afford care in rural areas because they need to repeatedly see the physician for their medications.
- New physicians often receive no documentation of past health history from other previous physicians of the patient.
1 comment:
This sounds like a sorry situation. I have questions about being a doctor. How much does the average Viet phsyician make per month? How does that compare to middle class wages (assuming there is a middle class)? If the monetary compensation is not good, is there at least social status attached to being a physician? I had always assumed, until I traveled to poor countries, that doctors everywhere enjoyed good salaries and high social status. But have now realized that this was just a cultural assumption from growing up in the U.S.
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