The first patients have arrived at the hospital China panic-built to treat the Wuhan coronavirus. Here's what it looks like inside.
Construction on the makeshift Huoshenshan Hospital started on January 23.
It only took 10 days to construct the 645,000-square-foot building. Seven thousand engineers, carpenters, electricians, and other specialists were brought in from around the country to speed up the process.
Construction workers also worked throughout the Lunar New Year holiday, MailOnline reported last week, citing state media.
Source: AP
The building is made out of prefabricated buildings with several sections that stretch out from one main centerpiece.
The building's design was based on the Xiaotangshan Hospital in Beijing, which was built in 2003 to fight the SARS epidemic at the time.
That hospital ended up treating one-seventh of the country's total number of SARS infections, state media said.
Source: AP
The building is two-floors high.
The People's Liberation Army has sent 1,400 doctors, nurses, and other medics to staff the facility, state media reported.
Some of them already have experience fighting other outbreaks, including SARS, the state-run Xinhua news agency said.
All of them are required to wear protective suits, the state-run CGTN news network reported.
There are four types of rooms in the hospital: Patients' wards, bathrooms, doctors' rooms, and nurse stations. This shows a shower room being built.
Workers were able to construct a water supply system for the bathrooms in just seven days, CGTN reported.
The hospital has 1,000 beds.
Zhong Nanshan, a leading Chinese epidemiologist who played a major role during the SARS epidemic, told state broadcaster CCTV that the extra beds would massively help the outbreak because sick patients can now stay in hospital rather than be sent home, according to Sky News.
About half of it comprises of isolation wards, and there are also 30 intensive care units to treat more critical cases, the AP cited the Yangtze Daily newspaper as saying.
Source: AP
The building contains special ventilation systems and double-sided cabinets that connect patients' rooms to hallways, so staff can deliver supplies without entering the rooms.
This is likely to prevent medics from contracting the virus, which spreads from human to human.
Source: AP
The hospital has a lot of advanced medical machinery, such as this MRI machine being built here. A Chinese company also reportedly donated "medical robots" to deliver medicines and test samples, the AP cited local media as saying.
Source: AP
Some rooms even appear to have TV screens installed. It's not clear whether these are in patients' rooms or used for other purposes, though.
The hospital even has a video system that enables doctors to talk to experts in Beijing, local media said. It said the system was installed in less than 12 hours from Wuhan Telecom Ltd.
The video system links doctors in Wuhan to Beijing's People's Liberation Army General Hospital, the AP cited the Yangtze Daily as saying.
Source: AP
The Huoshenshan Hospital is one of two hospitals being panic-built in Wuhan to fight the coronavirus. The second facility is to be completed later this week, and will have an additional 1,500 beds.
The second facility is called the Leishenshan Hospital. Construction of that facility began on January 27, and is due to open on February 5.
Source: Business Insider
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