An audit completed on 20 September by the National Audit Bureau has catalogued mismatches between paperwork and contents at 23 provincial emergency depots, the bureau and regional officials confirmed on Tuesday. Inspectors recorded hundreds of pallets where boxes declared as personal protective equipment, oxygen accessories or sterilisation kits instead held consumer items and non‑medical stock, a discrepancy the audit values at about VND 1.8 trillion (roughly €55 million).
The scope is national: auditors reviewed warehouses in Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, Da Nang and provinces in the Mekong Delta and Red River regions, and said the irregularities span shipments received since late 2024. The Ministry of Health temporarily suspended outbound distributions after the report was handed to senior ministers on Monday evening; international partners have paused some deliveries while they review customs and invoice records.
Where the goods came from
Natasza Stępień, the senior audit manager who led the inspection team, said auditors matched barcodes on pallets to import declarations and found many items registered under the ministry’s procurement system that did not match physical contents. “We checked serials, invoices and container manifests. On paper, these boxes were clinical items; in three separate depots crews opened units marked ‘ventilators’ and found bottled water and sealed noodle packets,” she said.
Aslam Manne, who manages a provincial depot near Bien Hoa where auditors recorded stacks of packaged food inside crates labelled for hospital wards, said he had signed delivery receipts after receiving instruction from a logistics contractor. “We were given manifests and told to unload and store the pallets. I assumed the paperwork had been checked at customs,” he said. The audit traced many consignments to a private importer that normally ships consumer goods for festivals and supermarkets, rather than established medical suppliers, the report said.
They opened boxes labelled 'oxygen accessories' and found kettles and cleaning fluid
Zoe Benavides, national nurses' union secretary
Unions and donors respond
Zoe Benavides, secretary of the National Nurses' Union, said the discovery had destroyed trust in the emergency stockpile and could affect care if materials intended for hospitals are not where they should be. “If medical stock is being diverted or mislabelled, nurses and other staff will have to decide whether their hospitals can keep operating safely,” she said. The union has called an emergency meeting for 25 September to consider co‑ordinated action which could involve staff stoppages at 30 hospitals in three provinces.
Éric Beaulieu‑Lapointe, representing a group of multilateral donors that funds emergency stock replenishment, said his agency had frozen several consignments while it conducts its own audit of invoices and customs papers. “Donors must be sure that what is contracted and paid for reaches hospitals. Until our review is complete, funding for new shipments will be held back,” he said.
Mayawati T. Parekh, deputy spokeswoman at the Ministry of Health, confirmed the ministry had accepted the audit’s immediate recommendations and placed two provincial supply directors on administrative leave pending a full recount. “We will complete an inventory within 10 days, secure affected depots and refer suspected irregularities to prosecutors where necessary,” she told reporters in Hanoi. The ministry also asked provincial councils to convene oversight sessions this week.
Investigations by customs and prosecutors are under way, and parliamentary deputies in several provinces have called for hearings. The audit has already prompted tighter checks on inbound consignments at major ports, and hospitals have been instructed to use existing on‑site stocks rationed by clinical priority. The auditors recommended centralising verification of medical serial numbers and shortening contract chains for critical kit; ministers said implementation would begin immediately.
