Hospitals in Vietnam

Vietnam’s public hospitals are cheap, busy and, in the big cities, better than their waiting rooms suggest — but they run in Vietnamese, they are crowded, and a foreigner without a translator will struggle. Alongside them sits a small tier of international and foreign-invested hospitals, concentrated almost entirely in Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City and Da Nang, where the doctors speak English or French, the paperwork is designed for insurers, and the prices are ten or twenty times higher.

The gap between those two tiers is wider here than anywhere else PacificAir covers, and it matters most for the things travellers actually suffer: a motorbike accident, dengue, a diving injury, a bad case of food poisoning. This page explains how to choose and what to expect; the city pages list the hospitals with addresses, phone numbers and maps.

Cities

All 18 hospitals in Vietnam

Bed counts are approximate. Tap a name for the full page, or a city for that city’s guide.

Public, private or international?

Three tiers, not two. Public hospitals — the provincial and central hospitals, and the university ones in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City — hold the country’s best specialists and cost very little, but they are crowded, run in Vietnamese, and often ask patients’ families to do work a nurse would do elsewhere. Vietnamese private hospitals sit in the middle: cleaner, quicker, still mostly Vietnamese-speaking. The international hospitals — a short list in Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City and Da Nang — are the ones set up for foreign patients, with English-speaking doctors and insurer billing. With insurance, go international. Without it, and for anything serious, a big public hospital will still treat you.

What does treatment cost?

At a public hospital, very little: an outpatient consultation with basic tests is often a few hundred thousand dong, and even an admission is affordable by Western standards. Foreigners are charged more than locals and pay cash at each step. The international hospitals charge Western prices — a consultation can cost more than a night in a good hotel, and an admission runs into the thousands of dollars. Ask for an estimate before any procedure, and expect to leave a deposit if you are admitted anywhere without a guarantee of payment from an insurer.

Insurance, deposits and evacuation

The international hospitals are used to travel insurance and several bill major insurers directly, but only with a guarantee arranged in advance — phone the assistance number on your policy before you go if there is time. Everywhere else is pay-and-claim, usually in cash, sometimes before treatment rather than after. The part people underbuy is evacuation: a policy that covers medical evacuation to Bangkok or Singapore is the difference between a transfer and an impossible bill. Keep every receipt and ask for an English-language medical report before discharge.

Motorbikes, dengue and the sensible precautions

A motorbike is the most common way a visitor ends up in a Vietnamese hospital, and most travel insurers refuse the claim if the rider held no valid licence for the machine — an international driving permit with the right category, or a Vietnamese licence. Wear the helmet. Dengue is present in the cities as well as the countryside and needs a blood test rather than a pharmacy; see a doctor for any fever lasting more than two days. Pharmacies are everywhere and sell most everyday medicines over the counter, but the labelling is in Vietnamese and quality varies, so buy from the established chains.

Vietnam travel guide / Vietnam visa guide / Vietnam tourist maps / All hospitals

Travel information, not medical advice.

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