Wuhan hospital built in nine days ready to admit Coronavirus patients

The number of confirmed cases of novel coronavirus rose to 14,380 in the Chinese mainland as of Saturday, including 304 deaths, according to the National Health Commission.

President Xi Jinping on Sunday commissioned the new 1000-bed hospital built in nine days to treat those infected with the novel Coronavirus in Wuhan, the central Chinese city at the epicentre of the outbreak.

China's army on February 2 was given control of a nearly-finished field hospital that will treat patients at the epicentre of a deadly virus epidemic that has severely strained medical facilities. (AFP photo)

Members of the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) will begin admitting patients to the hospital from Monday, state media reported on Sunday.

The new facility built in record time has 1,000 beds in 419 wards, including 30 intensive care units.

The number of confirmed cases of novel coronavirus rose to 14,380 in the Chinese mainland as of Saturday, including 304 deaths, according to the National Health Commission.

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Construction of the “Huoshenshan Hospital”, inside the Wuhan Workers’ Sanatorium in Caidian district, began on January 25.

It was completed by more than 7,000 workers.

“At the peak of the massive project, more than 4,000 workers and about 1,000 construction machines and trucks worked on the site,” the state-run, China Daily newspaper said in a report Sunday evening.

More than 1400 PLA’s medical workers including many doctors have been deployed at the hospital.

It’s the largest mobilisation of the PLA’s medical forces in more than a decade.

This hospital – along with a second one under construction – is likely to at least partly address the shortage of beds in the city to treat patients of the new pneumonia which is transmissible between humans.

“A total of 1,400 medical workers from the military will start on Monday receiving and treating patients infected with the highly contagious pneumonia at Huoshenshan Hospital, which was built in nine days and was formally delivered to the military on Sunday morning,” the China Daily report said.

The majority of the medics, 950, are from hospitals administered by the various wings of the PLA including navy and air force.

“Many medics involved in this operation, the largest mobilisation of the PLA’s medical forces since the May 2008 devastating earthquake in Southwest China’s Sichuan province, are experienced in handling infectious diseases because they took part in fights against the 2003 SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) outbreak in China and the Ebola epidemic in some western African nations in 2014,” the newspaper report said.

Hubei, the most-affected province in this outbreak, reported 9,074 confirmed cases by the end of the day, including 294 deaths, the provincial health commission said on Sunday morning.