The Ho Chi Minh City Health Department has said that it is looking for designers to draw up plans for four major hospital renovations across the expanding metropolis.

Huynh Van Biet, vice director of HCMC Department of Health, said that the designers were being recruited even though project planners were still facing land clearance problems. He said it was best to speed up the project.

"[The project] is very important to the city," he said.

The city has been slow to come up with funds with which to compensate local residents displaced or affected by the project, which envisions transforming four old hospitals in the outlying districts of Binh Chanh, Thu Duc, Cu Chi and 7 into first-rate modern facilities.

Under the plan approved by municipal authorities in 2007, the hospitals will serve local people in the four districts and those from other provinces coming to the city to seek advanced treatment.

This will help lessen traffic jams in the city's central districts of 5, 10 and 11, where most of hospitals are located, according to project planners.