The second facility of Hanoi's Bach Mai Hospital, whose construction began at the end of 2014, will have 1,000 beds and cost VND4.99 trillion (US$210.8 million). With six other floors and an area of 123,000 m2, the facility coming up 26 km from Nam Dinh City and 60 km from Hanoi will be capable of handling 5,000 patients a day.
Bach Mai is the largest public hospital in northern Vietnam.
It opened a portion in October 2018, and began receiving patients five months later. But in March 2020 the hospital announced it would stop receiving patients. In the absence of proper maintenance, weeds have taken over the hospital grounds.
During the Covid-19 pandemic, the hospital was used by the Ministry of Health as a treatment center and a national ICU. It was shut down again after the pandemic began to die down.
The functional wings of the hospital are complete. They are right next to an area that will become a park with a detention basin.
Around 700 m away is the second facility of the Viet Duc Hospital, also yet to open and not maintained.
By 2018 the hospitals were partly completed, including their diagnosis wings, but then construction stopped and they were shut down.
According to the health ministry, the delay is due to several unforeseen reasons, especially with regard to investment and contracts.
Viet Duc's current facility in Hanoi is the largest surgical center of Vietnam.
Most of Viet Duc Hospital's grounds are covered by weeds.
It was built at roughly the same time as Bach Mai, will have 1,000 beds and cost VND4.968 trillion ($209.9 million). It will have a total area of over 125,000 m2 on nine other floors. Once it opens, it can handle around 3,500 patients in a day.