Close-up of the passage through Gia Dinh People's Hospital and Oncology Hospital

Việc mở bức tường ngăn cách hai bệnh viện giúp Bệnh viện Nhân dân Gia Định sử dụng — Opening the wall separating the two hospitals allows Gia Dinh People's Hospital to "borrow" part of the Oncology Hospital's facility 1 (Binh Thanh District) to treat inpatients - Photo: THU HIEN

For many months now, Gia Dinh People's Hospital (HCMC) has had to open the wall separating the buildings of the two hospitals, creating a temporary corridor for patients and medical staff to move through the old facility of the Oncology Hospital next door.

Overloaded, Gia Dinh People's Hospital had to break down the wall to borrow a temporary treatment facility.

According to Tuoi Tre Online 's records on the morning of February 28, groups of patients' relatives and medical staff crowded back and forth between Gia Dinh People's Hospital and Oncology Hospital through a newly cleared corridor.

After examination, some patients were also pushed by their families in wheelchairs to the "temporarily borrowed" area of the Oncology Hospital for inpatient treatment.

According to observation, this corridor is about 2.5m wide, quite shabby, surrounded by corrugated iron, with many peeling concrete patches on the ceiling.

To get to the Oncology Hospital, along the hallway there is a sign "Area B, go this way".

Patient HN (43 years old, living in Binh Thanh district) is being examined and treated at Gia Dinh People's Hospital. She said that for about 3 months now, when she went for a check-up, she was quite surprised when she was guided to go through this road.

Doctor Nguyen Hoang Hai - Director of Gia Dinh People's Hospital - said that the hospital's existing facilities do not meet the needs of medical examination and treatment, so the hospital has "borrowed" building B of the Oncology Hospital for medical examination and treatment.

In addition, Gia Dinh People's Hospital proposed to allow the use of land and facilities of Columbia Asia Gia Dinh International Hospital (No. 1 No Trang Long, Binh Thanh District) - the unit that has just announced to stop all operations from January 31, 2024 because its investment certificate has expired.

When acquiring this land, the hospital plans to expand the medical examination and treatment area to serve local people and vulnerable groups (the poor, the elderly, the lonely), and at the same time renovate the existing green space to serve people coming for medical examination and treatment.

Construction is slow, giving hospitals headaches

The project to build a new building to replace the inpatient area of Gia Dinh People's Hospital was started on March 17, 2020 with a scale of 2 15-storey buildings from the Ho Chi Minh City budget, the career development fund and loans with a total investment of more than 600 billion VND.

The project is managed by Thanh Do Construction Group Joint Stock Company as the contractor and is one of the projects that has been repeatedly "named" for being behind schedule. Actual records show that this project is still under construction, but at a moderate pace.