Tens of thousands of patients have had their lives saved in the last 23 years by doctors at the Ho Chi Minh City Heart Institute.

Over 25,000 patients with complicated heart problems have been cured at the infirmary, with support from France’s Alain Carpentier association, since it was established in 1992.

The hospital also gives free surgery and treatment to poor patients across Vietnam.

Over 6,700 impoverished patients have had free operations that cost VND230 billion (US$10.2 million) at the institute.

In addition, 96 surgeons and nearly 500 medical staff of the heart facility have carried out charitable health checks on 12,000 patients in many provinces and cities.

Doctor Nguyen Van Phan, head of the surgery department of the Ho Chi Minh City Heart Institute, said his infirmary needs only one surgery to both treat valvular problems and switch the heart rate of a patient.

Seeing many heart patients in Vietnam die due to heart problems before 1992, Professor Duong Quang Trung, former director of the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Health, flew to France and asked for help from Professor Alain Carpentier.

The professor is also the chairman of the Alain Carpentier association.

The French association answered the call for help from Vietnam and the first complicated heart surgery was conducted in 1992, and it was a success, as expected.

“In general, the heart institute can now perform most complicated heart surgeries as other developed nations do,” said Doctor Do Quang Huan, director of the institute.

To lower the overwhelming number of patients flocking from other provinces and cities to seek treatment at the Ho Chi Minh City Heart Institute, the infirmary has run cooperation programs to transfer technology and heart surgery techniques to provincial hospitals.

The cooperation has shortened the length of the waiting list at the institute from 10,000 patients per annum in the first ten years to 800 patients a year now.

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