Anyone who has spent a morning in a corridor at Da Nang Hospital waiting to be seen knows the problem. Too many patients end up at the big central hospitals for care a district center could have handled. The city's fix has an awkward name, "satellite hospitals," and it's starting to show results.

How it works

Under the program, "core" hospitals train staff at local health centers hands-on and hand over specific techniques, so those centers can treat patients locally instead of referring them up. Da Nang ran it in two phases, 2019–2021 and 2023–2025, according to the Vietnam News Agency, reported by VietnamPlus on September 19. The techniques transferred include:

  • gastrointestinal endoscopy
  • general and obstetric laparoscopic surgery
  • fracture fixation
  • emergency and intensive care
  • neonatal care and caesarean sections
  • prenatal, breast and thyroid ultrasound
  • palliative care for cancer patients

The numbers

At the Son Tra regional medical center, surgery head Dr. Huynh Quoc Tam said the surgical department's referral rate fell from 14.2% in 2022 to 9.5% in 2025. Son Tra completed 10 of 18 approved training courses (55.6%) and put 17 of 33 scheduled technical areas into practice. Da Nang Hospital ran more than 40 training courses from 2023 to 2025, and deputy director Dr. Pham Tran Xuan Anh said referrals at grassroots facilities in the former Da Nang city fell by more than half. Hai Chau's regional center is also a satellite, and its director said it has upgraded facilities to take on new techniques.

The 9.5% figure is for Son Tra's surgery department only, not the whole center. That's real progress, but it's one department.

What's next

The Health Ministry wants at least 200 more satellite hospitals nationwide from 2026 to 2030. Under Decision 2696 of August 24, Da Nang Hospital is one of the program's national core hospitals, in five specialties: resuscitation and poisoning, stroke, cardiology, surgery and trauma with anesthesia, and endocrinology, VOV reported. Da Nang Oncology Hospital was named a core hospital for cancer care.

The plan also includes remote consultations, online training and "guided return," which sends stabilized patients back to local facilities for follow-up under specialist guidance.

What it means for you

For residents, the measure is simple: can your district center handle the problem that used to mean a trip downtown and a day in a corridor? For a growing list of procedures in Son Tra and Hai Chau, the answer is increasingly yes. Since the merger brought in rural and highland communes far from any big hospital, the bigger test is whether the same training reaches places like Tra My and Nam Giang.

Sources

This story was compiled by the Da Nang Voice news desk from the published sources listed above. Facts, figures and quotes are attributed to those sources; Da Nang Voice did not conduct interviews for it unless the text says so. Corrections are dated and noted at the top of the story. Read our corrections policy. Spotted an error? Tell us.