A seven-member delegation from the Vietnamese Ministry of Health visited Semmelweis University during the week of July 9.
Semmelweis University representatives had held a number of meetings with leaders of the Vietnamese state and several institutions of higher education over the past year and a half. The aim of the emerging collaboration is to contribute to the improvement of the Vietnamese health care system through the development of health training and the transfer of Hungarian experiences.
A reform of the health care system is currently underway in Vietnam, which encompasses the introduction of a new financing system, continuing medical education and licensing system. Marcel Pop, director of International Relations related that while Semmelweis University’s representatives had already met with representatives of the Vietnamese Ministry of Health several times in Vietnam, the current visit has allowed the Vietnamese delegation to become familiar with the University and receive an overview of the Hungarian experience.
The first stage of the collaboration will be comprehensive technical assistance in health care reforms and in the development of the licensing and continuing medical education systems. For this reason, the delegation’s four-day professional visit featured a series of lectures on the health care financing and continuing medical education systems and health care management. They also had the opportunity to visit the 2nd Department of Internal Medicine, the 1st Department of Pathology and Experimental Cancer Research, the Heart Centre and the Department of Biophysics and Radiation Biology where, in addition to an overview of the respective department’s activities, practical issues such as the education, research and health care financing models. “Over the course of the visit, we tried to collectively identify those concrete steps which need to be taken in order for the collaboration between Semmelweis University and the Vietnamese Ministry of Health to be realised. The delegation was also received by State Secretary for Health Miklós Szócska, who was pleased to see that the previously started discussions have reached such a high level. Dr. Szócska assured Semmelweis University and the Vietnamese party of his full support,” Marcel Pop related.
The second stage of the Vietnamese project is the establishment of a Medical Training Centre, the first step of which will be a pilot project in Ho Chi Minh City. A framework agreement, concluded in May 2012, is already in place for the project.
Zsuzsanna Szuchy
Translated by Gina Varga-Gönczi
