After years of delay, the second campus of the Ho Chi Minh City Oncology Hospital will finally open its doors to patients next month.
According to Dr. Diệp Bảo Tuấn, the hospital’s deputy director, the new campus will officially open on October 2 and function as the main inpatient facility for the HCMC Oncology Hospital. In the first few months, patients can choose between the old campus in Binh Thanh District or the brand-new campus in District 9, but in the future, those from Thu Duc, District 2 and 9 will have to head to the new facility.
The hospital will implement a shuttle bus service to ferry patients between two campuses as, after the District 9 facility becomes fully functional, the Binh Thanh center will only serve outpatient visits and diagnostic departments. At the moment, the oncology hospital receives around 3,000 patients from Saigon and across the southern region on a daily basis.
Construction on the second campus broke ground in June 2016 on a 5.5-hectare plot in Tan Phu Ward of District 9, slated for a 2017 finishing date. Though, the project faced numerous hurdles and delays. Municipal authorities recently increased the total area of the campus to 8.2 hectares. It was built using state funding amounting to VND5.845 trillion (US$253 million).
From October this year to the end of the first quarter next year, the hospital will open its diagnostic and chemotherapy departments. The radiotherapy department will come online from April next year and the rest from September 2021.
The new campus will feature 1,000 beds divided into one-bed and three-bed wards instead of multi-bed rooms like the old campus. It’s one of two hospitals in Saigon with a helipad and one of three in the city with a PET-CT machine, according to Phu Nu.
[Photo via Hanoi Moi]
