The Eastern People Military Hospital was founded on April 30^th, 2002 to satisfy task requirements in the new situation. Over the past 20 years of construction and development, the hospital has provided medical examination and treatment for tens of millions of cadres, soldiers, and citizens and contributed thousands of billions of VND to defence budget and state budget as well as hundreds of medical research products and initiatives, which has been highly appreciated by Military Region 7’s Command, the Military Medical Department, and professional offices of the Ministry of Health. It should be noted that in response to the 4^th wave of COVID-19 in Ho Chi Minh City and the whole country, under higher echelons’ direction, the Eastern People Military Hospital has established a field hospital for treating COVID-19 patients. With the tradition of “promoting internal strength, maintaining unity and coordination, serving the people,” cadres, physicians, and employees of the hospital have always considered COVID-19 prevention and control as “a combat mission in peacetime,” heightened self-reliance, overcome all difficulties and hardships, and determinedly fulfil the “dual tasks,” thereby making contributions to keeping the pandemic under control in Ho Chi Minh City and bringing our country to new normal. With those remarkable achievements, the hospital was given Third-Class and Second-Class Labour Orders in 1997 and 2022 by the State; it has been presented with many noble rewards by the Ministry of National Defence, Military Region 7’s Command, and local party committees and authorities.

Currently, the Eastern People Military Hospital is the first large-scale second-class people military general medical centre of the Military, with 200 in-patient care beds. It is also a pilot model in terms of financial autonomy, tasked with providing medical examination and treatment for troops, citizens, and beneficiaries. At the same time, it is a practice facility for Military Medical College No.2. In addition to advantages, the hospital is confronted with a lot of difficulties. Its facilities have been in use for many years. Its budget for acquiring small equipment, repairing and maintaining equipment, and constructing several works for short-term task requirements is still limited. Meanwhile, there is a strong competition for medical quality and human resources between health centres in the area. COVID-19 pandemic continues to be complex. Capability of technical personnel and physicians has yet to keep pace with developments of reality. Against such a backdrop, the Hospital’s Party Committee and Board of Directors focus on promoting the glorious tradition and applying lessons which are also seen as effective measures to perform all assigned missions in the upcoming time.

First of all, attach importance to building a politically strong hospital. This is an important, consistent measure during the hospital’s performance of all tasks. To that end, the hospital will attach significance to organising political education, stepping up the study and following of Ho Chi Minh’s ideology, ethics, and lifestyle, implementing the Campaign titled “promoting tradition, devoting talent, deserving to be Uncle Ho’s soldiers” in the new period, and aligning the Determination to Win Emulation Movement with other emulation movements launched by health sector. Due attention will be paid to well carrying out commendation and rewarding work, remaining proactive in ideological work, and organising cultural, artistic, and sports activities to create a lively emulation atmosphere. Moreover, consideration will be given to closely conducting the work of internal political protection, opportunely detecting and preventing negative practices, “self-evolution,” and “self-transformation,” and building an absolutely politically safe hospital. The hospital will raise the quality of operation of its grass-roots level trade unions and soldiers’ councils, bring into play Regulations on Democracy at Grass-Roots Level, and prevent complaints and denunciations. Besides, it will concentrate on building a contingent of cadres, physicians, and employees with political steadfastness, solidarity, and great determination to successfully fulfil all assigned missions.

The hospital will frequently improve its cadres, physicians, and employees’ communication skills, conduct, and service attitude. It will say no to unethical behaviours towards patients and their families or insensitivity to patients’ pain. Doing so will help cement patients’ faith, satisfaction, and cooperation, raise the effectiveness of medical examination and treatment, opportunely settle unexpected medical incidents, build the image of military physicians with “medical ethics, profound medical theories, and arts of healing” within the people’s hearts and minds, and bolster the image of “Uncle Ho’s soldiers” in the new period.

A conference on applying information technology to medical examination and treatment by the hospital

In response to its increasingly high task requirements, the hospital will focus on raising the quality of its human resources, scientific research, and technology application to well perform its professional work. To that end, the hospital will give priority to recruiting high-quality human resources. It will enhance the training of medical human resources and improve its staff members’ professional knowledge and experience. On a monthly basis, it will proactively develop plans and invite top physicians and professors to deliver lectures for nursing staff of its Otorhinolaryngology Department, while organising training courses on nursing skills, first aid, and patient transport in order to deal with emergencies. Due regard will be paid to deploying cadres and employees to attend refresher courses or further education courses so that they could satisfy their task requirements. Besides, the hospital will continue closely collaborating with Servier Vietnam Limited Liability Company in organising the Online Continuing Medical Education Programme as a specialised activity aimed at developing its staff members’ abilities, knowledge, skills, and service attitude and improving the effectiveness of its health care for patients. Also, the hospital will attach great value to well performing scientific research work and consider it as a task of paramount importance to raising the effectiveness of medical treatment and training. Emphasis will be placed on promoting technical initiatives and innovations, such as smart registration counter, application for cashless hospital bill payment, and the system for controlling patient room entries and exits. In fact, those models and initiatives have facilitated medical examination and treatment and helped shorten patients’ waiting time. Thanks to a close combination of medical reception, treatment, training, and scientific research, the hospital has become a centre for training thousands of physicians, nurses, and technicians of Military Medical College No.2 and made significant contributions to realising the Joint Military-Civil Health Service Programme and building a strong all-people national defence.

Furthermore, importance will be attached to applying information technology to managing, building, and developing the hospital towards smartness in a “creative, disciplined, professional, pioneering, and effective” manner. The quality of medical examination and treatment will be used to assert the hospital’s prestige under the goals of “reaching a high professional level,” “taking patients as the centre,” and “bringing satisfaction to patients.” The hospital will continue manufacturing hand sanitizer and face shields and undertaking many research projects to serve medical examination and treatment. Doing so will enable cadres, physicians, and employees of the hospital to improve their professional competence and medical ethics, master modern medical equipment, raise the effectiveness of medical reception and treatment, and contribute to building Military Region 7’s Military Medical Branch with “strong organisational structure, great manoeuvrability, professional expertise, political steadfastness, and pure medical ethics.”

To deal with a deterioration in facilities and equipment and an intense competition between regional hospitals, in addition to well performing the work of logistics and technical support under directions from Military Region 7’s offices, the hospital will make more investments in facilities and equipment for its missions. To that end, the Hospital’s Party Committee and Board of Directors will focus their leadership and direction on well implementing the financial autonomy mechanism, renewing the operating model, and mobilising all resources for medical examination and treatment, with importance attached to providing assistance for beneficiaries. Due attention will be paid to gradually developing high-quality medical services and acquiring advanced medical equipment, such as CT scanners, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machines, and digital X-ray machines in order to successfully treat complex, severe cases for the sake of patients’ satisfaction. Besides, the hospital has been comprehensively developing surgical specialities and mastering hi-tech operations, such as hip or knee replacement, laparoscopic surgery, and herniated disc surgery. It will appraise and implement the project on building a “smart, modern hospital” with 260 in-patient care beds. As COVID-19 pandemic will possibly continue to be complex, the hospital will frequently improve the quality of serving patients and create a favourable condition for the people (especially workers) in its stationed area to get access to high-quality medical services.

Bringing into play its glorious tradition and synchronously, drastically implementing those above-mentioned measures, in the upcoming time, the Eastern People Military Hospital will keep raising its professional quality to better meet troops and citizens’ need for medical examination and treatment.

Sr. Col., Excellent Physician TRUONG HOANG VIET, Director of the Hospital