Ten days after its launch, the countdown ends. On February 3 and 5, two hospitals, built in record time, are to open in the Chinese city of Wuhan, the supposed home of the coronavirus epidemic. These establishments, out of the ground at a staggering speed, will relieve the other hospitals in the city, overwhelmed by the influx of patients, and who have already reserved 4,000 beds for infected patients.
Called "Hospital of the God of Fire", the first building, with a capacity of 1000 beds, should be operational on Monday. The other, which pays homage to the “god of lightning”, is a little larger and has 1,500 seats. It is supposed to open two days later.
The works were launched on January 23 and 24, barely twelve days to build these medical buildings. They will receive a good part of sick or symptomatic patients. To achieve this feat, the Chinese government used great resources: four construction companies were contacted and hundreds of workers mobilized.
A video to follow the construction live
In the middle of the Chinese New Year, these workers had to put an end to their holidays and take turns, 24 hours a day, to ensure the construction of establishments. Nearly 700 executives and 4,000 construction workers operate on the site of the first hospital, said the Chinese daily Economic Daily. About 4,900 people and 1,000 construction machines are working on the construction of the second.
First, 55,000 m² of floor space had to be excavated (25,000 and 30,000 m² for each of the two hospitals). The images of dozens of backhoe loaders and backhoes have fascinated the whole world, to the point that the China Daily television channel has opened a video stream to follow the development of the two construction sites live.
The Chinese used prefabricated buildings which rest on beams, placed on concrete structures. "It's like when we recycle old containers to transform them into housing, it allows us to go very quickly," explains one of the French construction giants. Especially since "engineering work is what China does best," Yanzhong Huang, a public health expert, reminded the BBC. “They have a reputation for building high-speed skyscrapers. It is very difficult to imagine for Westerners ", according to this specialist in Chinese health policies.
At the same time, Chinese workers installed water supply pipes, electrical systems and 5G antennas. A priori, it will not be necessary to install air conditioning, since we are at the end of winter. At the moment, it is just over 10 degrees in broad daylight in Wuhan, compared to 25 degrees in Beijing in April and May.
Negative pressure in the rooms
Last step, the installation of medical equipment. The hospital, which is due to emerge from the ground on Monday, will include an intensive care unit, patient care services and consultation rooms, according to China central television.
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Separate quarantine services will be built to minimize the risk of cross-infection. The chambers will be at negative pressure, that is to say they will suck in air and thus prevent the virus or contaminating agents from escaping to the outside.
Doctors, nurses, nursing assistants… More than 2,000 of them will integrate the larger of the two new hospitals, the one supposed to open on February 5, said one of the operators of the project.
It is not the first time that China has built a hospital in record time. At the end of April 2003, during the epidemic of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) which appeared in the country in 2002, six companies had been requisitioned to build an establishment ... in seven days.
The hospital, which had "been gently abandoned at the end of the epidemic," according to public health expert Yanzhong Huang at the BBC, has started to be renovated, the official China news agency reported on Thursday. Its entry into service will depend on the future development of the epidemic. 99% of the patients who had been welcomed in this establishment had recovered, still according to new China. A performance that the Chinese authorities hope to repeat.