A massive children’s hospital, considered Vietnam’s most modern, went into partial operation on Monday in a rural district of Ho Chi Minh City.

Ho Chi Minh City Children’s Hospital, located at 15 Tran Van Chi Street in Binh Chanh District, inaugurated its clinical and emergency wards, with the remaining wards expected to come on stream as early as the second quarter of 2017.

According to Prof. Dr. Nguyen Tan Binh, director of the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Health, the hospital is the most modern children’s hospital in Vietnam and the largest-ever built in the southern region since 1975.

The 1,000-bed hospital spans an area of 12.4 hectares and cost the government VND4.2 trillion (US$187.5 million), according to Truong Quang Dinh, the hospital’s director.

In the first month following its inauguration, the hospital will carry out general health checkups for 3,000 local children under the age of 15, Dinh said.

The hospital is expected to share the load with two other children’s hospitals in Ho Chi Minh City in District 1 and District 10, which are often overcrowded with patients from neighboring provinces, Dinh added.

Over 200 fresh medical graduates have received clinical training over the past three years to work as doctors and technicians for the hospital, which is equipped with state-of-the-art medical technology.