QUESTION 8: DOING HEALTH CERTIFICATION FOR WORK PERMIT

Among documents needed to apply for a work permit there is health certificate. In case of applying for a certificate from the health authorities in nearby regions of HochiminhCity, the HCM City Department of Labor, Invalids and Social disapprove certification of hospitals and health clinics overseas and approve only certification provided by specified Vietnamese hospitals. For us, visiting doctor who is not Japanese make us feel very insecure. But this is a must to complete dossiers applying for work permit and this makes us feel difficult. As Japanese, we earnestly want to be examined at a hospital with Japanese doctors, not at a local hospital in Vietnam. We hope that the Department will consider health certificate provided by the foreign hospital and clinics– where Japanese doctors issued – as Health Certificate as required in the profile to apply for a work permit. We also know about Circular No. 14-2013-TT-BYT. Circular No. 14 stipulates that medical establishments performing medical examination need to register. However, in Circular No. 14, among the conditions required to be considered as qualified establishments, there are equipments and devices not normally used for medical examination that could be considered as exessive conditions. In addition, registration procedure is taken a very long time. We also understand that registration of foreign hospitals and clinics has not yet completed. But the fact that Japanese people residing in HCM have to suffer from stringent requirements for registration as well as long time waiting needed for registration is unreasonable. During previous time, it is clear that there is no problem with the Health Certificate provided by foreign hospitals, clinics in HCMC. We wish DOLISA consider the Health Certificate provided by foreign hospitals, clinics in Ho Chi Minh City as Health Certificate needed to apply for a work permit.

DOLISA answers:

According to the provisions of Clause 2, Article 10 of Decree No. 102/2013/NĐ-CP of the Government-dated 05/09/2013 detailing a number of articles of the Labor Code about foreign workers working in Vietnam, among the documents needed to apply for a work permit there have been a health certificate issued in a foreign country or in Vietnam as stipulated by the Ministry of Health.

For health certificate issued in a foreign language, it must be legalized and translated into Vietnamese, certified in accordance with the law of Vietnam.

For health certificate issued by a hospital in Vietnam, the hospital must have examination-for-foreigner function with the purpose of applying for work permit licensed by health sector. Currently, in Ho Chi Minh city, foreigners may contact Thong Nhat Hospital, Cho Ray Hospital, 115 Hospital, Van Hanh Hospital for examination and receiving health certificate.

Thus, foreign workers can choose to have medical examination overseas or in Vietnam as stipulated by the Ministry of Health.