Removing the 'bottleneck' of traditional medicine bidding

Bidding and purchasing of traditional medicine at medical facilities are facing many difficulties due to fluctuations in medicinal herb prices, lack of stable supply, and problems with legal regulations.

Patients come for examination at Ho Chi Minh City Hospital of Traditional Medicine - Photo: THUY DUONG

Many precious medicinal herbs and medicinal herbs are only used for "internal circulation" and have not been widely circulated to meet people's health care needs.

In this situation, medical facilities in Ho Chi Minh City are still making efforts to proactively ensure medicine for patients, while at the same time proposing many solutions to sustainably develop this field.

If there is a suitable mechanism, we can expand the supply scale, contributing to the development of traditional medicine from the grassroots level to general hospitals, meeting the health care needs of traditional medicine of Ho Chi Minh City people.

Representative of Ho Chi Minh City Hospital of Traditional Medicine

Many problems in bidding work

According to Mr. Tran Ngoc Trieu - Deputy Director of the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Health, currently, drug procurement at medical facilities is carried out through many forms such as national centralized bidding, local centralized bidding, price negotiation, pooled bidding and separate bidding.

However, bidding for traditional medicine has encountered many obstacles in recent times.

First of all, the prices of medicinal herbs and traditional medicines often fluctuate according to season and geographical area, making it difficult to accurately establish planned prices, affecting the progress of organizing bidding.

Some medicinal herbs, especially imported medicinal herbs, do not have scientific names similar to the Vietnamese Pharmacopoeia and are therefore not eligible to participate in bidding.

Besides, the system of tracing the origin of medicinal herbs is still lacking in synchronization, causing many medicinal herbs to lack sufficient documents to prove their legal origin.

The evaluation of bidding documents also encountered difficulties due to the characteristics of traditional medicine such as the same ingredients but different concentrations, dosage forms or treatment indications, requiring the opinion of a professional council, so it took a lot of time. Some traditional medicines were not yet on the bidding list or were not covered by health insurance, causing difficulties in planning the supply.

"The above difficulties may lead to a situation where some hospitals experience a local shortage of certain medicinal herbs or medicinal materials at specific times, affecting the ability to prescribe full traditional medicine prescriptions. However, medical facilities still proactively coordinate within the permitted scope, and at the same time have appropriate alternative measures to ensure continuous treatment for patients," Mr. Trieu informed.

The Department of Health regularly coordinates with units to synthesize and report difficulties, and at the same time proposes to the Ministry of Health to amend relevant regulations and policies. In 2025, the Department has issued many documents with comments on amending and supplementing the Law on Bidding, decrees and circulars on drug bidding and the list of traditional medicine drugs covered by the health insurance fund, in order to ensure a stable supply and promote the development of traditional medicine.

Some medicinal herbs at Ho Chi Minh City Hospital of Traditional Medicine - Photo: KD

Switch to using pre-prepared preparations

Deputy Director of Ho Chi Minh City Traditional Medicine Hospital Nguyen Phuong Nam acknowledged that in the past, some medicinal herbs did not have contractors participating because the demand for small quantities was not attractive enough for contractors to participate. In addition, some medicinal herbs of domestic origin (traditional medicine) could not be purchased because information about their origin and source had not been fully posted on the system of the Department of Traditional Medicine and Pharmacy Management.

Despite some difficulties, the hospital with many years of experience should always proactively have a supply plan, avoid shortages of drugs and medicinal herbs, ensure continuous treatment for patients, and serve well the work of patient health care.

A doctor at the Ho Chi Minh City Traditional Medicine Hospital said, "With medicines of the same group of effects, doctors can adjust and replace them to ensure treatment is maintained for patients. For example, when ginseng is lacking, codonopsis pilosula can be used - both are tonics, helping to maintain treatment effectiveness even if the prescription is no longer completely correct according to the ancient recipe."

As for the drugs produced by the hospital, because the ingredients have been specifically announced, they cannot be replaced by other similar drugs. In this case, the hospital will switch to using pre-made tablets from pharmaceutical companies with corresponding ingredients to ensure continuous, uninterrupted treatment for the patient.

The Ho Chi Minh City Hospital of Traditional Medicine recommends that detailed guidelines on the transfer and payment of traditional medicine between traditional medicine facilities in the same area be issued soon. With a clear mechanism, units can support each other in case of drug shortages.

At the same time, the hospital also proposed establishing a national shared medicinal materials supply center to concentrate resources, optimize purchasing prices and ensure stable medicinal materials supply nationwide.

Another key issue is the lack of GACP (Good Practice in Growing and Harvesting Medicinal Plants) growing areas in the country, leading to dependence on imports. Therefore, there needs to be a policy of linking businesses, medical facilities and growing areas to control quality right from the production stage.

Currently, the hospital has a pharmacy department with an area that meets the standards of good manufacturing practices for medicinal herbs and traditional medicines (GMP-WHO) as well as testing that meets the standards of good laboratory practices, and an area that meets the standards of good preservation practices for medicinal herbs, medicinal herbs, and traditional medicines.

Although the hospital is the first unit in the country to do well in processing and controlling the quality of medicinal herbs and ingredients, it only uses them internally within the hospital and has not been widely circulated to meet the health care needs of the people.

THUY DUONG

Source: https://tuoitre.vn/go-nut-that-dau-thau-duoc-lieu-y-hoc-co-truyen-20251126005222076.htm