Establishing a Foreign-Invested Hospital in Vietnam

Since Vietnam joined WTO with the commitments, along with the preferential investment policies in the field of medical examination and treatment, the number of foreign-invested hospitals has increased significantly.

Hospital services (CPC 9311), foreign service providers are allowed to provide services through the establishment of a 100% foreign-invested hospital or a joint venture with a Vietnamese partner or through a business cooperation contract. The minimum investment capital for a hospital is twenty (20) million US dollars.

A hospital is only allowed to operate when it meets the conditions on facilities, departments, rooms, personnel and professional capabilities. And have sufficient licenses as prescribed, including (i) Investment Registration Certificate, if applicable (ii) Enterprise of Registration Certificate (iii) Operation license for medical examination and treatment (an Operation License). Here we’re discussing together about the conditions to be granted an Operating License for a general hospital.

To be granted an Operation License, in addition to meeting the general conditions for granting an operating license for medical examination and treatment establishments specified in Article 23a of Decree 155/2018/ND-CP, a general hospital must satisfy the following additional conditions:

Hospital size

  • Must have at least 30 beds.

Infrastructure

  • Depending on the size, the hospital must be designed and built in the form of a coordinated house and must satisfy the following conditions: (i) Arrangement of faculties, rooms and corridors to ensure professional activities according to the model concentrated, continuous and self-contained within the hospital’s campus; ensure aseptic conditions and environmental sanitation conditions as prescribed by law; (ii) Ensure the construction floor area is at least 50 m2/patient bed or more; the width of the front (facade) of the hospital must be at least 10 m;
  • Have a backup electric generator;
  • Ensure the conditions for medical waste treatment according to the provisions of the law on environment.

Medical equipment

  • Having enough means of emergency transport inside and outside the hospital. In case there is no emergency vehicle outside the hospital, a contract must be signed with a medical examination and treatment establishment that has been granted an operating license and has a professional scope of activities in providing emergency services to support transportation the patients.

Organization

  • Departments: (i) There are at least 02 out of 04 departments of internal medicine, surgery, obstetrics and pediatrics (ii) Department of medical examination and reception, emergency room, hospital stay, clinic, and minor surgery room (if applicable) performing minor surgery); (iii) The subclinical department, having at least one laboratory and one imaging room; (iv) Faculty of Pharmacy; (v) Other departments and specialized departments in the hospital must be suitable to the size, functions and tasks.
  • There are departments and divisions to perform the functions of general planning, personnel organization, quality management, nursing, finance and accounting and other necessary functions.

Personnel

  • The number of full-time (organic) practitioners in each faculty must be at least 50% of the total number of practitioners in the faculty;
  • Heads of specialized departments of the hospital must have a practicing certificate suitable for that specialty and must be a full-time practitioner at the hospital;
  • Deans of other departments who are not subject to the grant of practice certificates must have a university diploma with a major relevant to the assigned work and must be a full-time practitioner at the hospital.

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Note: This article is for informational purposes only and it is not a legal advice. The content of the article represents its own of TTVN Legal, it subject to change without prior notice.