Cho Quan Hospital Prison

A prison block inside Saigon's oldest hospital, where Tran Phu, the first General Secretary, died in 1931

Within the grounds of the Hospital for Tropical Diseases, formerly Cho Quan Hospital, the oldest hospital in Saigon, which began receiving patients on 13 February 1861, stands a U-shaped building roofed with fish-scale tiles. This was the hospital's prison block, where comrade Tran Phu, the first General Secretary of the Indochinese Communist Party (now the Communist Party of Vietnam), died on 6 September 1931. In 1988, the prison block was ranked a National historical relic. The building was not originally built as a prison but to meet the hospital's needs, housing psychiatric patients, hence its isolated rooms and sturdy iron window bars; it later became a place to detain sick prisoners. On 26 August 1931, comrade Tran Phu was transferred here from the Saigon Central Prison (Kham Lon Sai Gon). During the two wars of resistance, many other revolutionaries, such as Tran Nao, Ha Huy Tap, Tran Bach Dang and Nguyen Van Troi, were also detained here. The site remains largely intact: a 2.5 m-high brick wall surrounds it, with a small watchtower at the corner, a guardroom roofed with hook tiles in front of the entrance, cells with sleeping platforms and wooden doors fitted with iron mesh, and a section of original fish-scale tiles nearly 150 years old. Protest slogans are still clearly visible on the walls. A statue of the late General Secretary Tran Phu stands in the grounds. In April 2024, the prison block completed phase 1 of its restoration to its original state and was open to visitors from 1 to 10 May 2024; phase 2 is expected to expand the site with a Ho Chi Minh Cultural Space and an exhibition house. There is currently no official information on regular opening hours, so visitors should enquire before coming. The entrance to the prison block is through the hospital gate; as this is a working hospital, visitors should keep quiet when passing the treatment areas. The site is a stop on the "Memories of Saigon – Cho Lon" tour and pairs easily with Tue Thanh Assembly Hall and Nghia An Assembly Hall.

English text: machine translation from the Localis platform — proper names kept in Vietnamese.