Taoyuan has finally cleared the biggest hurdle to building its own city hospital, good news for residents in Taiwan's only special municipality without one.

• The health ministry has issued the setup permit for a main hospital in Bade district, with branches planned for Guanyin, Fuxing and Daxi.
• The Bade site will hold 499 general acute care beds on a 4.8-hectare plot near a local park, which is being rezoned from parkland to medical use by the end of this year.
• Taoyuan's population keeps growing, and the project stalled for years over an undecided site and medical-district boundaries.
• Land is the remaining catch: a tenth of the plot is privately owned, split among close to 600 holders, so buying or expropriating it could take one to two years.
• The city plans to run design tenders and land acquisition in parallel, hiring an architect early next year so construction can start the moment the land is secured.

Outlook: Design work should begin in early 2027, with the city aiming to open the hospital by the end of 2033.