The giant Nightingale hospital that hasn’t treated ONE patient: West Midlands Mayor Andy Street admits new temporary health centre in Birmingham has ‘not needed to be used’ yet
- The temporary hospital, which was built in eight days and has the potential capacity for 4,000 patients over a 75,000 sq ft area, opened on April 10
- The facility is one of seven that have either opened recently or are due to open shortly at a cost of millions to treat coronavirus patients
- There is growing speculation that some will never be used after regular hospitals cancelled operations and cleared wards to make space for the anticipated surge
- Here’s how to help people impacted by Covid-19
Not a single patient has been treated at Birmingham’s Nightingale hospital, it emerged yesterday.
The temporary hospital, which was built in eight days and has the potential capacity for 4,000 patients over a 75,000 sq ft area, opened on April 10. But West Midlands mayor Andy Street admitted it has ‘not needed to be used’.
The facility is one of seven that have either opened recently or are due to open shortly at a cost of millions to treat coronavirus patients.
There is growing speculation that some will never be used after regular hospitals cancelled operations and cleared wards to make space for the anticipated surge in sick people.
The empty NHS Nightingale Hospital Birmingham, in the National Exhibition Centre (NEC)
Just 26 patients were treated at the flagship Nightingale in east London last week, down from a peak of 41.
It can take 3,600 patients. MPs yesterday called for facilities to broaden their intake of patients to include care home residents with Covid-19. Around 7,500 care home residents are believed to have died from the disease.
Shadow Minister for Care and Older People Liz Kendall told the Sunday Mirror: ‘We must ensure the elderly with Covid-19 can go and be properly cared for.’
Defence Secretary Ben Wallace last week suggested sites could be ‘repurposed’ for non-virus patients and operations that have been cancelled due to the pandemic.
Prince William, Duke of Cambridge opens the new NHS Nightingale Hospital via video link on April 16, 2020 in Birmingham, England
Dr David Rosser, of University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Trust, said he was ‘proud of getting it up and running but… proud of the fact that we didn’t need to use it’.
An NHS spokesman said the sites were intended as a back-up if hospitals lacked the capacity to take Covid-19 patients.