As of the end of last month, 474 cancer patients were waiting to undergo surgeries at the Ho Chi Minh City Oncology Hospital in the namesake city, director of the hospital Pham Xuan Dung told Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper.

He attributed the high number of patients waiting for surgeries to the degraded infrastructure and overload at the main campus of the infirmary, which is based in Binh Thanh District.

The hospital’s director expected that when the second campus of the hospital, in Thu Duc City, is completely put into operation with the number of operating rooms increasing from 14 to 20, the waiting time will be shortened from four to three weeks.

According to statistics from the Ho Chi Minh City Oncology Hospital, the hospital performs 31,000-33,000 surgeries for cancer patients per year.

The number fell to 18,000 and 29,000 in 2020 and 2021, respectively, when the COVID-19 pandemic broke out in Vietnam.

Tang Chi Thuong, director of the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Health, told Tuoi Tre on Friday that the department and the municipal People’s Committee had surveyed the second campus of the Ho Chi Minh City Oncology Hospital twice.

The time to inaugurate the second campus will be decided by the government.

In addition to increasing the number of operating rooms to cut patients’ waiting time, the municipal healthcare sector has a plan to develop a network to screen, early detect and treat cancer patients, Thuong added.

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