Prince Charles opens hospital built in nine days to fight virus

Published April 4, 2020
LONDON: Britain’s Health Secretary Matt Hancock watches a video message from Prince Charles on a monitor during the opening ceremony of the NHS Nightingale field hospital on Friday.—AFP
LONDON: Britain’s Health Secretary Matt Hancock watches a video message from Prince Charles on a monitor during the opening ceremony of the NHS Nightingale field hospital on Friday.—AFP

LONDON: Britain’s Prince Charles opened a new hospital in London on Friday, erected to provide thousands of extra beds for patients with the coronavirus and built in just nine days in a huge conference centre.

The Nightingale Hospital, which will initially provide up to 500 beds equipped with ventilators and oxygen, will eventually be able to treat about 4,000 patients. It has been created in the Excel Exhibition Centre in London’s Docklands.

Built with help from the military, it is the first of six new temporary hospitals to be set up across the country to cope with the outbreak. So far, 2,921 people who have tested positive for Covid-19 in Britain have died.

Heir-to-the-throne Charles opened the hospital by video link from his home in Scotland in a first for the British royal family, who usually carry out such engagements in person.

The 4,000-bed facility is the first of six new temporary hospitals to be set up across Britain to cope with the outbreak

He said the hospital was an example of “how the impossible could be made possible”. “It is without doubt a spectacular and almost unbelievable feat of work,” he said.

“To convert one of the largest national conference centres into a field hospital... is quite frankly incredible.”

The prince, 71, himself came out of seven days of self-isolation this week after testing positive for the virus. “I was one of the lucky ones to have Covid-19 relatively mildly,” he said.

“But for some it will be a much harder journey. I am therefore so relieved that everyone can now have the reassurance that they will receive all the technical care they may need and every chance to return to a normal life.”

The Excel Centre, with more than 900,000 square feet of exhibition space, normally hosts events for industries like defence, travel and property. During the 2012 London Olympics it was used for boxing, fencing and weightlifting.

The temporary hospitals are being built to prevent Britain’s stretched National Health Service from being overwhelmed by an influx of patients, with the number of those requiring treatment expected to peak in the next few weeks.

Health chiefs have also urgently appealed to workers without clinical qualifications to come forward to help run the Nightingale, which will require thousands of staffers.

London has been the worst affected area in the country but more hospitals will open in Manchester and Birmingham to provide an extra 3,000 beds. Further facilities will be set up in Bristol, in the southwest, and Harrogate, in the northeast.

Another temporary hospital will be built in Glasgow in Scotland, which will initially be able to handle 300 patients.

Published in Dawn, April 4th, 2020

Opinion

Editorial

Judiciary’s SOS
Updated 28 Mar, 2024

Judiciary’s SOS

The ball is now in CJP Isa’s court, and he will feel pressure to take action.
Data protection
28 Mar, 2024

Data protection

WHAT do we want? Data protection laws. When do we want them? Immediately. Without delay, if we are to prevent ...
Selling humans
28 Mar, 2024

Selling humans

HUMAN traders feed off economic distress; they peddle promises of a better life to the impoverished who, mired in...
New terror wave
Updated 27 Mar, 2024

New terror wave

The time has come for decisive government action against militancy.
Development costs
27 Mar, 2024

Development costs

A HEFTY escalation of 30pc in the cost of ongoing federal development schemes is one of the many decisions where the...
Aitchison controversy
Updated 27 Mar, 2024

Aitchison controversy

It is hoped that higher authorities realise that politics and nepotism have no place in schools.