Hospital overload has been a difficult problem in the health sector for many years, the number of hospital beds per 10,000 people in our country is still low in the region. In 2014, determining that reducing the overload of end-line hospitals is an urgent issue, the Government agreed to allow the construction of 2 Central hospitals in Ha Nam with a total investment of more than 9,000 billion VND. After 10 years of construction, the billion-dollar facility is still abandoned.
Ribbon cutting and closing
In December 2014, the Ministry of Health and the People's Committee of Ha Nam province held a groundbreaking ceremony for the project to build a new facility 2 of Bach Mai Hospital and Viet Duc Friendship Hospital.
These two facilities are located next to the North-South Expressway, convenient for receiving emergency patients. The goal is to serve the medical examination and treatment needs of people in the North Central provinces and some provinces in the Red River Delta.
Phase 1 is expected to be completed in February 2016 with the 200-bed Outpatient Department put into operation. By the end of 2017, the entire 2 hospitals will be put into use, with a scale of 1,000 beds/hospital, the total investment of each facility will be up to more than 4,500 billion VND.
Viet Duc Hospital 2 has only stopped at the ribbon cutting stage and has never received any patients. (Photo: N.Loan)
Bach Mai Hospital's second facility has been invested in and newly built into a modern, complete general hospital to treat serious diseases and specialized areas such as cardiovascular, internal medicine, oncology, nephrology, and respiratory; serving about 5,000 visits per day, with a total floor area of over 123,000m2, including 1 basement and 6 upper floors.
Facility 2 of Viet Duc Hospital is invested into a complete surgical hospital treating bone, skull, brain, head, face, neck, chest, spine injuries; pediatric cardiovascular microsurgery; serving 3,500 visits per day, with a total construction floor area of over 125,000m2, built with 1 basement and 9 upper floors.
After 4 years of construction, on October 21, 2018, the examination areas of both facilities were inaugurated. However, only the examination area of Bach Mai Hospital, Facility 2, was put into use from March 2019 to March 2020, then announced a temporary suspension of operations. Viet Duc Hospital, Facility 2, only stopped at the ribbon cutting ceremony and has never received patients.
It is expected that these will be two large, modern hospitals operating according to international standards, solving the problem of overloading central hospitals. However, up to now (November 2024), the project of Bach Mai Hospital 2 and Viet Duc Hospital 2 with a total investment of several thousand billion VND has not been completed, there are still abandoned buildings, many auxiliary areas are under construction and degraded, some areas have peeling walls covered with moss, the yard and garden are overgrown with weeds, becoming wild.
Why can't the two hospitals operate?
According to the Ministry of Health, the reason for the two projects being behind schedule is due to not fully anticipating the problems arising during project implementation, especially the implementation of regulations in basic construction investment, problems in contract implementation, and payment and capital disbursement.
The representative of the Project Management Board said that during the construction process, there were many adjustments and changes to many items according to the opinions of the two hospitals such as changing the air conditioning system, hot water, number of air conditioners, and inpatient areas for doctors and nurses, so the implementation time was exceeded.
After 10 years of construction, the project is still a series of abandoned buildings. (Photo: N.Loan)
In the petition sent after the 7th session of the 15th National Assembly, voters of Ha Nam province continued to request the Government to direct relevant agencies to urgently put Viet Duc Friendship Hospital and Bach Mai Hospital 2 into operation. This is to meet the increasing demand for medical examination and treatment of the people of this province in particular and the provinces in the region in general.
Regarding this issue, Minister of Health Dao Hong Lan said that in order to soon complete the items and put the second facility of Bach Mai Hospital and the second facility of Viet Duc Friendship Hospital into operation, on February 21, 2023, the Prime Minister decided to establish a Working Group to review difficulties and obstacles and promote the implementation of the project investment.
The working group held many meetings to discuss and finalize the draft report on the review results, submit it to the Government, clearly stating the difficulties, obstacles and solutions in implementing the project to build the second facility of Bach Mai Hospital and Viet Duc Friendship Hospital.
Up to now, the working group of the Ministry of Health has reviewed and comprehensively assessed legal and technical issues related to the project, difficulties, obstacles and problems in project implementation, worked with contractors and proposed solutions, reported to the Government to resolve the problems and continue to implement the project on schedule.
Minister Lan said that in the coming time, the Ministry will continue to coordinate with relevant ministries, branches and units to study plans to submit to the Government to gradually resolve issues in order to put Viet Duc Hospital and Bach Mai Hospital 2 in Ha Nam into operation to meet the people's needs for medical examination and treatment.
Bach Mai Hospital currently receives and treats 6,000-8,000 outpatients every day, with about 4,000 inpatient beds, and is always overloaded. Viet Duc Hospital also receives more than 1,000 medical examinations and treatments every day, and performs more than 70,000 surgeries a year, mainly of severe, complex, and multiple trauma. The early operation of the second facility of the two hospitals will help reduce the overload at the facility in Hanoi.
Nhu Loan
Comment (0)