‘Welcome to NHS Nightingale’
The Guardian posted this video showing an electrician working at the ExCeL centre in London, which is being converted into a makeshift hospital to prepare for the coming onslaught of severe cases of Covid-19 in the UK capital.
London’s ExCel conference centre will become an emergency hospital treating coronavirus patients ‘within days’.
The is being converted in a high-speed operation involving military planners and personnel, and its capacity will rise quickly from the initial 500 beds, defence sources said on Tuesday.
It is intended to deal with the expected surge in coronavirus patients with severe breathing difficulties for whom beds are unlikely be available in London’s overflowing intensive care units.
As work began on construction, electrician Alex Woodside posted a chilling video on Facebook showing the cavernous 100,000 sq metre Docklands site
The Guardian YouTube Channel
Electricians were needed to fit out ExCeL London on short notice – among other staff – because they are building a field hospital to house 4,000 patients in the British capital.
Alex Woodside, who posted this video, is one such electrician working on site.
He said that there were “four thousand beds to go in, two morgues, this hall is a kilometer long… if you’re not taking it seriously, like I wasn’t, I think you really need to start.”
“Welcome to NHS Nightingale.”
The field hospital is necessary because the UK Government’s response to the crisis began as “business as usual” despite evidence from China, South Korea and Italy showing a more aggressive approach could prevent widespread deaths.
The UK has been reacting to the crisis ever since – behind the curve – and many thousands of British people are likely to be hospitalized as a consequence.
The country did eventually fully lockdown – after walking back an initial disasterous “herd immunity” approach – but not before many thousands of British people had been unwittingly infected with Covid-19.