Trump’s bomb proof hospital

‘Ring of steel’ protects the President in luxury 6-room medical suite

BULLET-PROOF windows, 6in-thick ‘ bombproof’ doors and a ‘ring of steel’ which includes a 24-hour drone patrol: Welcome to the presidential hospital suite where Donald Trump is battling coronavirus.

The six-room suite on Ward 71 at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Maryland has its own intensive care room, living area, workspace and a kitchen where a White House chef can prepare Mr Trump’s favourite meals to be served under a crystal chandelier in the dining room.

A 24- hour ‘ drone patrol’ will fly over the Medical Evaluation and Treatment Unit (METU), which is one of 88 buildings at the

‘Even the portraits that greet the President are personalised’

244-bed facility known as ‘the President’s hospital’. A source told The Mail on Sunday last night: ‘It has the high-tech medical facilities and security you would expect.

‘ There are special scrambling devices to ensure secure communications. The suite is autonomous from the rest of the hospital.

‘The Secret Service have their own area and there are bedrooms for the President’s personal physician and his chief of staff. There is also a secure conference room. The walls, windows and doors are fortified and bomb and bullet-proof.’

Dr Connie Mariano, who was director of the METU when it opened in 2011, said nurses and doctors were pre-screened to ‘activate immediately’ once the President is admitted.

‘The floor is outfitted with protective devices and communications gear used in support of the President,’ she added.

‘The decor is modest but elegant, resembling the West Wing of the White House.’

Staff would have personalised the suite in readiness for Mr Trump’s arrival. ‘No detail is too trivial for the METU team. Even the official portraits that greet the guest as they enter the suite are personalised,’ Dr Mariano added.

The Walter Reed centre, named after the US Army doctor who discovered that yellow fever is transmitted by mosquitos, has a chequered past.

The original hospital, built in 1909, was mired in controversy in 2007 after it emerged that servicemen returning from wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were being kept in ‘appalling’ conditions. The name was changed from the National Navy Medical Center to the Walter

Reed Center, and the hospital was given a £ 2 billion refurbishment before reopening in 2011.

It is where John F Kennedy’s autopsy was performed after his assassination in Dallas in 1963. In the 1980s, Ronald Reagan was treated for prostate cancer and had surgery to remove colon polyps.

Two years ago, First Lady Melania Trump, who i s said t o be ‘doing well’ after herself testing positive for Covid-19 – was treated for a kidney condition. Stephanie Grisham, who is Mrs Trump’s chief of staff, said the First Lady had been in ‘constant touch’ with her husband, adding: ‘Her symptoms have not worsened and she continues to rest. She is thinking of all who are ill and wishes them a speedy recovery.’

The hospital source added: ‘The doctors and nurses treating the President will have been through rigorous pre-screening for security reasons but they do not have unrestricted access.

‘Once the President is inside, the area is controlled by the White House and Secret Service.’

The hospital, about nine miles from the White House, boasts 165 ‘smart suites’, each fitted with ‘twoway communication devices, audiovisual and wireless capabilities’. They also have ‘bedside entertainment, all of which can be controlled via a wall-mounted, removable keyboard that the patient has access to at all times’ – a boost for Mr Trump who is known to enjoy flicking between late-night chat shows.

Mr Trump last visited the hospital in July to visit wounded servicemen and women and, ironically, to meet medics helping to fight the Covid- 19 crisis. It was the first time that the President, famously sceptical over face-coverings, wore a mask in public.

‘I think when you’re in a hospital,

especially in that particular setting where you’re talking to a lot of soldiers and people that in some cases just got off the operating table, I think it’s a great thing to wear a mask,’ he said at the time.

‘I’ve never been against masks but I do believe they have a time and a place.’

The White House insisted that Mr Trump will be ‘working’, possibly from a desk only a few steps from his hospital bed.