Full to overflowing

economist – WAS the tumour malignant? Nguyen Thi Hoat’s doctors could not tell because their public hospital lacks brain-scanners. Ms Hoat’s only option was to travel 130km (80 miles), on the back of her sister’s motorbike, from her village to a crowded public hospital in the capital. Yet her state insurance policy covers just 30% of any medical expenses incurred outside her home province. The $150 that Ms Hoat, a rice farmer, put towards blood tests and a brain scan is equal, for her, to a month’s earnings.

It is the job of the authorities to look after health care. The Communist Party of Vietnam first pledged health-sector reform as early as the 1920s, well before it declared the country independent in 1945. It developed a publicly financed health-care system even as it was fighting wars against France and then America. The provision of health care is supposed to be one of the pillars on which the party’s legitimacy is based.

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