INSIDE THE STADIUM’S HOSPITAL
THE tough restrictions enforced in Wales amid the covid-19 pandemic are working as the country braces itself for its fourth week in lockdown, the First Minister has said.
Mark Drakeford spoke out as Public Health Wales revealed the number of people who have died after contracting covid-19 rose by 15 to 384, as a total of 5,610 have now tested positive for the virus.
He said that the benefit of the public staying at home over the Easter bank holiday weekend and sticking to the strict social distancing guidelines would be seen in the weeks to come.
“Thanks to everyone who’s staying home. I know this is hard. For some people it’s even tougher,” Mr Drakeford said.
“Thank you for sticking to the rules, there are signs this is working.
“Our actions and decisions over the Easter break and weeks to come will have an impact.”
Last week Mr Drakeford had warned the restrictions could get worse if people flouted social distancing rules.
It comes after a weekend when two further NHS staff in Wales died after testing positive for the virus.
Donna Campbell worked at the Velindre Cancer Centre in Cardiff as a healthcare support worker while Gareth Roberts was a nurse at the Cardiff
and Vale University Health Board.
Police patrols of beaches, coastal areas and other public spaces were continuing across Wales over the holiday period.
Wales is also playing a role in a UKwide programme for treating coronavirus patients using blood donated from people who have recovered from the illness.
The plasma will be used to help patients develop immunity to Covid19.
Meanwhile, the WRU President’s
Lounge at Cardiff’s Principality Stadium has been transformed into a hospital ward for coronavirus patients.
New images have been taken of the makeshift ward which was ready to treat its first patients on Easter Sunday.
The home of Welsh rugby has undergone a remarkable overhaul – and has been temporarily renamed Dragon’s Heart Hospital – to help fight the Covid-19 pandemic.
The Dragon’s Heart Hospital contains 2,000 beds, with 300 currently available for people being treated for coronavirus.
It has been designed and made operational in under two weeks – a process that would normally take two years.
Around 2,500 staff are expected to be working there when at full capacity.
Len Richards, chief executive of Car
diff and Vale University Health Board, tweeted out the first pictures of the makeshift wards and beds.
The images also show the giant tents that have been erected on the pitch to control the temperature within the stadium where up to 700 patients will soon be treated.
As well as the pitch area, raised platforms will house another 200 patients.
Other huge spaces in the bowels of the stadium are also being used including the home and away dressing rooms, which have already been turned into temporary offices.
More than 18,000 bed pans will need to be emptied every day, 20,000 porter visits will be required daily to different parts of the hospital, threeand-a-half tons of clinical waste will be removed off-site, and hundreds of thousands of litres of oxygen will be brought to the venue.
A mobile CT scanner, four X-ray machines, and a mobile laboratory are all being delivered.
In two weeks the complete 2,000bed hospital will be fully operational after a mammoth effort involving 5,000 hours of planning and work by around 650 contractors and 30 members of the armed forces who have been helping build beds.