Deputy health minister quits to get treated for cancer

It is not clear what type of cancer he has but he recently had surgery at Cho Ray Hospital in HCMC.

The government has finally accepted his resignation, which he sent in for a third time in June.

Son, 58, of HCMC, was appointed deputy health minister in Nov. 2018 when he was director of Cho Ray, the largest public health facility in the south.

He has outstanding credentials as a doctor, especially for his contributions to the development of organ transplant techniques in Vietnam.

One of four deputy health ministers, he supervised the Covid-19 fight in hotspots like Da Nang in mid-2020, Bac Giang and Bac Ninh provinces in northern Vietnam in early 2021 and in HCMC in late 2021.

In November last year he received an official rebuke from the Communist Party’s Central Inspection Committee for wrongdoing by the Drug Administration Department.

Last month the committee escalated it and issued him a warning for his involvement in the Viet A Company test kit scam, for which Minister of Health Nguyen Thanh Long was arrested.