This was the content discussed at the Workshop on Dissemination of Decrees and Circulars guiding the Law on Bidding organized by Viet Duc Friendship Hospital on August 2.

No more buying cheap, poor quality drugs!

The first workshop held among medical facilities on bidding after the promulgation of the Decree and Circular guiding the Law on Bidding attracted the participation of many officials working on bidding and purchasing drugs and equipment of large and small hospitals across the country.

The first workshop held among medical facilities on bidding attracted the participation of many officials working on bidding, purchasing drugs and equipment of large and small hospitals across the country.

At the workshop, Dr. Duong Duc Hung, Director of Viet Duc Friendship Hospital, said that bidding for drugs and medical supplies has been a "hot" issue recently. Therefore, the hospital has made many efforts to make this work less arduous, with the motto of not letting patients' health and lives be affected.

The principle of drug bidding that Viet Duc Friendship Hospital in particular and hospitals in general are implementing is public, transparent, economical and accountable.

Regarding the procurement of drugs and medical supplies at the facility, according to Dr. Hung, from January 1, 2024, the Law on Bidding came into effect, after which a series of decrees and guiding circulars were issued, which helped the hospital a lot in the procurement process.

Accordingly, many new regulations have helped hospitals overcome difficulties, some regulations are even a big step forward to change the entire purchasing process at the facility, such as not necessarily purchasing goods at the lowest price, or removing regulations on origin, helping hospitals purchase good goods, at reasonable prices, in compliance with legal regulations.

For example, with a very small product used as adhesive tape in hospitals. Previously, with the old regulation, hospitals had to buy at the cheapest price, so a cheap, poor quality adhesive tape won the bid, the consequence when used was that it involved a whole patch of the patient's skin.

Now this has been overcome, hospitals are not forced to buy the cheapest products, but can buy good, genuine products, at reasonable prices and in compliance with the law.

When talking about the difficulties and problems encountered during the purchasing process, the Director of Viet Duc Friendship Hospital asked the representative of the Drug Administration Department, Ministry of Health about the issue of borrowing medicine for treatment.

The reason Dr. Hung raised this issue is because this is a reality that happens frequently in hospitals with emergency cases to save the patient's life.

"With some drugs that the patient needs but the hospital does not have, can we borrow them from another hospital to save the patient? When borrowing drugs like that, is it a violation of regulations?", the leader of Viet Duc Friendship Hospital asked.

In case of borrowing medicine, when returning it, do we have to follow the principle of returning the correct medicine name, equal price and equivalent expiry date?

Regarding the above content, according to Mr. Le Xuan Hoanh, Head of the Drug Price Management Department, Department of Drug Administration, Ministry of Health, according to regulations, drug trading can only take place between units that have enough business conditions, while hospitals are public service units so they do not have the right to transfer. Mr. Hoanh also added that drug transfer can only be done with radioactive drugs.

With the arising reality as stated by the Director of Viet Duc Friendship Hospital, according to Mr. Hoanh, the management agency will conduct research to propose solutions suitable to reality, ensuring the rights and giving the highest priority to the health and lives of the people.

Lack of medicine, waiting for surgery, why?

Regarding the situation of drug shortage, patients have to wait for surgery for a long time, according to Dr. Duong Duc Hung, this is a reality and the hospital is making many efforts to overcome it.

Dr. Duong Duc Hung talks to reporters about the shortage of medicine and waiting for surgery at Viet Duc Friendship Hospital.

The leader of Viet Duc Friendship Hospital said that with bioequivalent drugs, if one drug is not available, another equivalent drug will be available to replace it, so in general, there is no shortage of treatment drugs.

However, with special drugs such as Albumin and Gamma Globulin, because there are no partners participating in the bidding, the hospital cannot purchase them, so the shortage is real. According to Dr. Hung, this case is force majeure.

Anesthetics are also in short supply due to the lack of alternatives, while the demand at Viet Duc Friendship Hospital is very high because it is a special surgical hospital, performing 270 to 300 surgeries and 30 to 40 emergency surgeries every day.

Director Duong Duc Hung also added that in the past, the hospital pharmacy had solved the problem of medication for both inpatients and outpatients.

However, new regulations on tightened procurement and bidding are causing difficulties for the pharmacy system in all public hospital systems.

Explaining the shortage of anesthetics, according to the Director of Viet Duc Friendship Hospital, in early May, when the circular guiding the Law on Bidding was issued, hospitals immediately started preparing documents for bidding. The long time to prepare documents will slow down the purchasing process.

“New drugs have not been bid for yet, the hospital does not have any alternative drugs, and cannot borrow, so the shortage of anesthetic drugs is inevitable,” Dr. Duong Duc Hung admitted.

Due to the lack of anesthesia, in parallel with working on the bidding documents day and night, the hospital had to regulate the number of surgeries appropriately. Specifically, the hospital had to reduce the number of surgeries, non-urgent surgeries that could wait such as screw removal surgery, cosmetic surgery..., while the remaining surgeries such as cancer surgery, emergency surgery, or organ transplants from brain-dead donors... were still guaranteed.

"Without regulation and anesthesia, even emergency surgeries cannot be performed. Therefore, the hospital is forced to reduce the number of surgeries instead of interrupting them. Reality shows that the regulation is effective. Now that anesthesia is resolved, the number of surgeries has increased again," Dr. Hung added.

With the long waiting time for surgery, in addition to the subjective reasons as analyzed above, Viet Duc Friendship Hospital is the last resort, patients from all over the country flock to it, the number of beds is limited. All operating rooms of the hospital are operating at full capacity, doctors and nurses try their best to perform surgery until 9-10 pm.

And according to Dr. Hung, the medical staff have tried their best and cannot try any harder, because that would not ensure the quality of medical examination and treatment, and for Viet Duc Friendship Hospital, quality is always the top priority and cannot be neglected.