The first special hospital in Wuhan, decided and built in record time to face the crisis of the new coronavirus, has been completed and tomorrow, as scheduled, will begin to welcome patients. The facility, known as Huoshenshan , will be managed by military doctors, Chinese media reported.
The facility, with 1,000 beds, is equipped to provide assistance for up to 10,000 patients: it will be operational from tomorrow, but from 6 February it will be joined by the twin hospital, Lieshenshan, with 1,500 beds. President Xi Jinping, head of the Central Military Commission, approved the dispatch of 1,400 military medical personnel. In Huoshenshan, in fact, there will be 950 doctors from the hospitals connected to the People's Liberation Army (PLA) Joint Logistic Support Force, and another 450 coming from military universities including the army, navy and aeronautics, already present in Wuhan.
Among the doctors sent there are some who have consolidated experience in infectious diseases, having participated in the campaign against Sars in 2003 - in particular, at the Xiaotangshan hospital built in Beijing and undergoing modernization to return to service against the coronavirus - , and anti-Ebola missions in Sierra Leone and Liberia. There are also 15 outbreak prevention and control experts in Wuhan.