Dong Nai’s healthcare: Driving breakthroughs to meet centrally governed city standards

As Dong Nai advances on its roadmap for becoming a centrally governed city, upgrading the quality of healthcare services is not merely an administrative criterion but an urgent requirement to ensure quality of life for a population of nearly 4.5 million.

Doctors at Dong Nai General Hospital perform a laparoscopic gastrectomy on a patient with stomach cancer. Photo: Hanh Dung

With this roadmap, where does Dong Nai's healthcare sector stand in the national healthcare system, and what breakthroughs are needed to ensure its development commensurate with Dong Nai’s future status? Deputy Minister of Health DO XUAN TUYEN granted an interview to the Dong Nai Newspaper and Radio, Television on this topic.

Advancing toward major medical centers

* Deputy Minister, Dong Nai is rapidly transforming in preparation for its transition into a centrally governed city. How do you assess Dong Nai  healthcare sector’s transformation during this critical phase?

The Ministry of Health highly appreciates the efforts and substantive results achieved by the entire Dong Nai healthcare sector in recent times. With the characteristic of a large area and dense population, the locality has built a widespread healthcare system from the provincial to the grassroots level.

Deputy Minister of Health Do Xuan Tuyen

A highlight that the Ministry of Health wants to emphasize, according to the report from the Dong Nai Department of Health, is that in 2025, the province successfully completed 6 out of 6 healthcare targets. In particular, maintaining a 100% rate of commune and ward health stations with doctors, and 90.5% of health stations eligible for health insurance-based examination and treatment, is a highly commendable effort.

At the treatment level, the Ministry of Health is truly impressed with the breakthroughs in specialized techniques at Dong Nai General Hospital and Thong Nhat General Hospital. The fact that doctors have mastered specialized techniques such as open-heart surgery, laparoscopic heart surgery, stroke intervention, or ECMO technique... shows that their professional expertise has approached that of major medical centers in Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi. This is the solid foundation, because a centrally governed city will be self-reliant in specialized healthcare, capable of retaining patients and reducing the burden on higher-level hospitals.

* Dong Nai is working to implement the Politburo’s Resolution No. 72-NQ/TW, dated September 9, 2025, on breakthrough solutions to strengthen the protection, care, and improvement of people's health, with the goal of bringing healthcare closer to the people. For this goal not to remain just a slogan, what breakthrough solutions does the locality need to implement?

Resolution No. 72-NQ/TW provides strategic direction for healthcare work in the new situation with 5 core contents. These are about bringing healthcare services closer to the people; shifting strongly from treatment to prevention; building electronic health records for all citizens; organizing annual periodic health check-ups and moving towards providing free basic hospital fees for all citizens.

Dong Nai is among the leading localities nationwide in terms of its private healthcare system with 12 private hospitals, over 2,000 general and specialized clinics, and over 4,000 pharmacies and healthcare service facilities.

To implement these 5 tasks, Dong Nai needs to take fundamental steps. The first task is to reorganize the healthcare system according to the two-tier local government model. The province needs to decisively reorganize regional and commune-level healthcare units with the goal of forming health stations under the model of complete revenue-generating public service units and placing them under the management of commune and ward People's Committees to ensure closer alignment with the daily lives of the people. The province is moving in the right direction by building a complete roadmap for these stations to become complete public service units from now until 2030.

At the same time, Dong Nai is actively establishing electronic health records. This is the key for the healthcare sector to monitor people's health throughout their lifespan, thereby providing timely and accurate interventions. The Ministry of Health highly appreciates the province's efforts in developing a plan for organizing free periodic health check-ups for the people starting from 2026, after receiving guidance from the Ministry of Health. This is not only a social welfare activity but also brings long-term disease prevention value. The fact that Dong Nai's health sector is promoting the application of information technology and forming a shared database will also help strongly reform administration, allowing people to benefit from initial procedural processes.

Five pillars for Dong Nai's healthcare to develop "on par with” a modern urban center

* Resolution No. 72-NQ/TW states the goal that by 2030, people will be exempt from basic hospital fees. Could you explain this content more clearly and the implementation roadmap so that the people of Dong Nai in particular and the whole country in general can soon benefit from the policy?

This is a major policy aimed at achieving equity in healthcare. Currently, the national health insurance coverage rate has reached over 95%. We are striving to implement solutions for the remaining 5% of the population to participate in health insurance, aiming for universal health insurance coverage. Exemption from basic hospital fees means that when people undergo medical examination and treatment, they will be exempt from fees within the scope of health insurance payment. If treatment needs exceed that capacity or voluntary services are used, people will only have to pay according to regulations. According to the roadmap from now until 2030, more efforts will be made to refine institutions to ensure that all people receive healthcare and health protection from the outset.

A doctor adjusts a machine to treat a child patient at Dong Nai Children's Hospital. Photo: Hanh Dung

* With the Central Government agreeing in principle to establish Dong Nai as a centrally governed city, what does the local health sector need to do to be commensurate with a modern urban center?

To match the stature of a modern centrally governed city, the Ministry of Health believes that Dong Nai needs to pursue a comprehensive strategy built on key pillars.

First, there must be a long-term "blueprint". The province needs to soon approve the project for the development of the health sector from now until 2030, with a vision to 2040, with comprehensive content ranging from preventive medicine, medical examination and treatment to population work, and social protection, to clearly define the current "position" and breakthrough points that need priority investment.

The public health system in Dong Nai province currently has 8 hospitals/institutes at the central, ministerial, and sectoral levels; 3 provincial general hospitals; 3 regional general hospitals; 5 specialized hospitals; 6 provincial specialized centers; 22 regional medical centers; 95 commune/ward health stations, and 176 outpost stations.

Second, it is necessary to build specialized medical centers. Efforts must go beyond treating common diseases; Dong Nai must establish high-tech centers so that people can access the most modern services without having to go to higher-level facilities.

Third, it is necessary to strengthen smart medical connectivity; promote remote medical consultations (Telehealth) with central hospitals to handle difficult cases on-site through technological support; and build a local health database connected to the national database.

Fourth, the province needs to improve forecasting and disease prevention capabilities. A modern city must be a city safe from epidemics. Therefore, preventive medicine, forecasting, and international cooperation in the health sector need to be especially emphasized.

Fifth, Dong Nai should promote the strength of private healthcare. The province has a great advantage as it is among the country’s top localities in terms of the number of private hospitals and clinics. Mechanisms are needed for both public and private healthcare to develop together, creating a diverse and quality healthcare ecosystem.

The Ministry of Health believes that with these fundamental solutions, Dong Nai’s healthcare sector will develop in a manner commensurate with the status and expectations of a centrally governed city.  

By Hanh Dung – Translated by Mai Nga, Thu Ha