Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung asked for a solution to patient overload in hospitals at an inaugural ceremony for a new facility of the Vietnam national cancer hospital in Tan Trieu commune, Hanoi ’s outlying district of Thanh Tri, on Aug. 19.

In the first phase, the 1000-bed Tan Trieu facility, which costs over 1 trillion VND (47 million USD) in investment, put the first 300 beds into service. This will help relieve patient overload for its managing hospital, the Vietnam national cancer hospital, locally known as hospital K.

According to Dr. Bui Dieu, Director of hospital K, patient overload at hospital K has become serious as up to 4,000 people come to seek check-up and treatment services in the hospital a day.

Addressing the event, PM Dung acknowledged that patient overload in central-level hospitals has sparked concerns for the Government, the health sector and people nationwide and affirmed the government’s due attention to the issue.

He asked the Ministry of Public Health to quickly submit to him a plan to address hospital overload in the time to come while continuing to instruct hospital K to speed up the second phase of Tan Trieu facility for completion by 2013 as planned.-VNA