Current Situations and Issues of the use of heath care services by Oversees Koreans: A case of Korean residents in Hanoi city

Abstract

Objective: This study was designed to investigate the use of heath services by Korean residents in Hanoi city, Vietnam, and to identify current situation and issues of the use of health care services among Korean residents in Hanoi city.

Methods: To collect data about the use of health care services by Korean residents in Hanoi city, Vietnam, we conducted a survey. For the survey, developed for this study was distributed to Korean society in Hanoi city. The contents of the questionnaire were socio-economic status, subjective health status, source of information on health care, visiting health care organisations, difficulties to access to health care, and satisfaction with the services, and so on. 146 respondents was answered the questionnaire, who has been lived in Hanoi city, Vietnam. Data were analyzed to determine the level of perception, attitude and experiences of health care services and to analyse the relations between the variables related to the perceptions and experiences in use of heath care services in Vietnam.

Results: Of the 146 respondents visiting one or more the practice within the last 12 months, 57.5% was male, 37.7% was age 40s. 20.6% high living standard. 47.3% of respondents visited health care facilities to have consultation regularly. Three main barriers to access health care services were: no reliable facilities and physicians (43.3%, 24.5%), cost of services (22.6%), langue barriers. There were two main reasons why visit health centers: the location of health center and cheap cost of services. There were three major reasons identified among the respondents to visit heath facilities: chronic diseases (hypertension, DM, chronic arthritis); acute diseases (common cold, abdominal pain; physical check and consultation). The causes of dissatisfaction with the use of health care services were: low quality of services; low accessibility to the facilities, unkindness of personnel, the complexity of the administrative process of the health facilities, insufficient convenience of facilities and expensive cost of services.

Conclusion: The results suggest that many Korean residents in Hanoi city have used the heath care services provided by the Vietnam physicians and foreign physician in Hanoi city. Health care facilities in Hanoi city should anticipate the inconvenience perceived by foreign patients, especially the Korean residents. To cope with the demand for Korean residents, the problems and issues identified by this study should be stressed in health care sector in the Vietnam. It suggest that both of the government of Korea and Vietnam may pay attention to develop some measure to resolve the issues and difficulties of the use of services by the overseas Korean, to fulfill increasing demand for health care services, and to ensure the quality of medical services. Finally, to improve the quality of life and promote the level of health status of oversees Koreans, both public and private health care sector and organisations should consider these issues and develop some measures as well.