Tuberculosis patients without health insurance pay for their own medicine

Medical staff of the Resuscitation - Emergency Department of Hai Duong Lung Hospital take care of a patient. Photo: Archive

Dr. Nguyen Van Luu, Director of Hai Duong Lung Hospital, said that currently, tuberculosis treatment drugs have been included in the list of payments by health insurance, and patients are no longer provided free by the State as before. The reason is that Vietnam has escaped the list of poor countries and become a middle-class country, so from January 1, 2023, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria has stopped funding tuberculosis treatment drugs. This means that patients who do not have health insurance cards will have to pay for the drugs themselves.

Since the beginning of the year, TB patients without health insurance cards have been able to use free medicine because the number of drugs provided by the National Tuberculosis Prevention Program from 2022 is still available. However, the number of these drugs is about to run out or has expired, so in the near future, patients without health insurance cards will have to pay for the medicine themselves.

Hai Duong currently has about 80 out of 516 TB patients being treated without health insurance cards. Most of the patients are in difficult circumstances, their ability to work has been lost or is limited. Meanwhile, TB patients must take medicine every day of the week for at least 6-8 months, or even longer if they are not cured, so the cost is expensive. For those who are first diagnosed with TB and do not have health insurance cards, they will have to pay for diagnosis, testing, etc.

PV