- The hospital will be operational in 15 days at a location close to the General Hospital
- It will be equipped with 400 beds
- There will be a further 700 beds in València and Castellón.
- The Valencian Government reaches its first agreement in the province to use a hotel as a health centre.
“So far, resources are sufficient to meet the demand, but all scenarios must be planned to anticipate and future needs,” said Community President Ximo Puig.
But Puig also wants to take out insurance and have all possible facilities available in the face of a possible increase in the number of people infected by the pandemic in the coming days.
An additional 166 hospital beds are to be established between the Doctor Esquerdo centre in San Juan, Alicante, and two residences in Torrevieja and Alcoy, and yesterday it was announced that the Generalitat has also contracted the emergency construction of three field hospitals in València, Alicante and Castellón with a total capacity of 1,100 beds.
Of these 1,100 spaces places, 400 will be situated in Alicante, although they will be available for all the regions. The new facilities will be located in a location close to the City’s General Hospital, as will also be the case in Valencia, with 500 more beds, and Castellón, where another 200 beds will be installed.
The measure was announced during Thursday late afternoon by Ximo Puig, after a videoconference with the Minister of Health, Ana Barceló, and other senior government officials.
He said that at least half of the places will be ready within a maximum period of fifteen days to guarantee places should there be an increase in those affected by the coronavirus epidemic.
But according to Puig, the strengthening of new medical facilities does not end there, since, with the aim of “providing maximum security to the entire Valencian health system”, he is negotiating with the hotel sector and the first two sites have already been closed, two hotels in Alicante and Valencia, which will also serve patients affected by the coronavirus . The intention of the Consell is to use the areas of the hotel “that are necessary” to deal with the emergency.
The field hospitals that are to be established by the Generalitat will operate with the central reference hospital thanks to an integrated communications system. Each of the field hospitals will be equipped with all of the necessary clinical and logistical elements and will have services such as isolation units, independent reception areas, triage, bathing and service and rest areas for health personnel who are employed in these facilities.
These sanitary infrastructures, whose construction and design process will be adapted to the changing needs of the coronavirus epidemic, will have the same facilities as any other hospital. They are also designed to operate for long periods of time, consisting of deployable containers connected to each other by tunnels.
Ximo Puig also announced a few days ago that he will be hiring a further 846 health professionals from all fields and professional categories to reinforce healthcare needs, many of whom are expected to be employed in the new field hospitals.
