New hospitals spring up in Wuhan
With existing hospitals reporting bed shortages due to the demand created by the rapid spread of coronavirus, on 24 January China decided to begin constructing new ones. Less than two weeks later, the doors of the new medical facilities opened to the first patients
Two new hospitals sprung up in Wuhan, the capital city of Hubei province, in the first week of February. It had taken less than two weeks to go from breaking ground on the site to admitting the first patients. The two new hospitals – the 1,000-bed Huoshenshan (pictured) and 1,600-bed Leishenshan
– are based on the design of Beijing’s Xiaotangshan hospital, which was built to cope with 2003’s SARS outbreak. Huoshenshan and Leishenshan were made from prefabricated units to get them built quickly.
2. Three ‘field’ hospitals were also being set up in Wuhan in early February. The pictured 2,000-bed facility was in a building that, until the coronavirus outbreak, had been an exhibition centre. Another of the city’s exhibition centres and a gym have also been commandeered to handle the volume of patients.
3. Patients began arriving at Huoshenshan on Tuesday 4 February. Two days later, the first patients were expected to be admitted to Leishenshan hospital.
4. 1,400 medical staff had been drafted in from China’s military to treat patients at the Huoshenshan hospital.
5. Efforts to control the spread of coronavirus in areas outside Hubei see volunteers disinfecting public areas. Here, a railway station in Hunan, a province to the south of Hubei, is sprayed with chemicals to kill the virus.