Lisbon prepares a field hospital with 500 beds

The structure should be ready on Saturday to receive coronavirus-free patients who are now at Hospital de Santa Maria, so as to ensure there are more available beds for covid-19 patients. Original text by João Pedro Pincha published on Público on Mar.25, 09:00

At Estádio Universitário de Lisboa, a field hospital with a capacity for 500 beds is being prepared to deal with the covid-19 outbreak. The intention is not to take infected patients there, but rather patients with other pathologies who are currently in the wards of Hospital de Santa Maria. This way more beds will be made available to face up to a foreseeably higher number of cases. Universidade de Lisboa has made three halls of the sports complex available, with about 4000 square meters. The army supplied the beds. Human and hospital resources come from Hospital de Santa Maria, while the Lisbon City Hall is responsible for preparing the structure and renting equipment. The City Hall will spend 300 thousand euros a month and predicts the field hospital should be running for three months. This Tuesday the three halls started being fitted with air conditioning, appropriate floor coating, an air renewal system and wifi. Workers are also preparing to ensure a reinforced power supply, as well as sewage and urban hygiene systems. The forecast is that everything will be operational by Saturday. Aside from these fixed structures, they are also putting up a big tent on the lawn at the entrance of the stadium, with nearly 1000 square meters. There will also be smaller tents close to the halls to guarantee food preparation and distribution to hospital staff. At the moment there’s only a small field hospital set in Lisbon. It’s next to Hospital de Santa Maria and run by the Red Cross. It was set at the start of March, along with a similar one at Hospital de São João in Porto, but meanwhile town halls from north to south started turning their sport halls and schools into temporary shelters for patients. That’s been the case in Torres Vedras, Vila Nova de Gaia and Cascais. The information about the new structure was put forward by Fernando Media, (mayor of Lisbon) this Tuesday in a city hall meeting specifically organized to debate the fight against novel coronavirus. When contacted by Público, Centro Hospitalar de Lisboa Norte, (which Hospital Santa Maria belongs to), and the Regional Health Administration (ARS) for Lisboa e Vale to Tejo, (Lisbon and the Tagus Valley) did not want to make any additional declarations.