Hospital Cave in Cat Ba Island

How long to get to Quan Y cave? 

If you have the opportunity to visit this island district, Quan Y Cave is an interesting place located right along the main road of Cat Ba National Park. Surely you will be surprised by the grand scale of a field hospital in the mountains. Only 13km from Cat Ba town, it takes you about 30 minutes to reach Quan Y Cave because of being easy to find with the along-road signpost.

The first floor of Quan Y cave

At the entrance to the cave, you will encounter a firm iron door. The door is curved to prevent bullets and shrapnel to pin directly to cause damage. Right behind the door was fortified with 4 auxiliary iron latches and one main latch leading to the hospital cave which is extremely monumental scale. The entrance can be a bit small, which makes you scared by the cold and lack of light.

The light along the corridor is barely bright enough for travel. You will think that this is a bomb shelter, but not originally a cave inside the mountain. A rather large patient room is in a field hospital. By design, the first floor is the main area including 14 functional rooms. Level 2 is a movie screening and fitness test. The third floor is the reception hall, guard room, and officer room.

A duty room of the doctors in the field hospital can be seen immediately after opening the door. You will also discover drainage gates located along the hospital corridor. It is estimated that the entire field hospital is nearly 2,000 square meters, consisting of three separate floors including 17 large and small rooms, a movie theater and several function rooms.

The second floor of Quan Y Cave

To go to the 2nd floor, there are 2 paths up and it is not easy to go up because it is a hard challenge for the enemy if they attack suddenly. In case the enemy can attack inside, everyone from the 3rd floor can jump into the water tank arranged below the 2nd floor then rush to the exit of the tunnel and run straight to the side door. Besides, in this cave, there is an underground staircase area just below the 3rd floor. It leads to the emergency exit of the 3rd floor and goes to the back door of the hospital. At the end of the tunnel is 2 large iron gates against the enemy. This will also be an emergency exit if the enemy attacks from the front door.

Quan Y Medical Cave is also a historic place because it was a field hospital when the US imperialists escalated bombardment of North Vietnam in 1963 - 1965 by aircraft and warships. During this time, people on the island built a cave based on the natural limestone mountain to serve as a place for treating wounded soldiers, shelters, avoiding bombs of residents and people evacuated from Bach Long Vy Island.