The United Kingdom has opened its first emergency coronavirus-treatment hospital after a quickfire nine days of construction that Prince Charles hailed as proving how “the impossible could be made possible.”
The temporary National Health Service Nightingale hospital in London, located at an expo center, is beginning operations Friday with 500 beds outfitted with oxygen tanks and ventilators, according to the BBC. The nearly one million square feet of space there has room for another 3,500 beds, and when fully complete, the facility will be able to treat up to 4,000 patients.
“An example, if ever one was needed, of how the impossible could be made possible and how we can achieve the unthinkable through human will and ingenuity," Prince Charles, who announced its opening Friday, said via video link from his Scottish home of Birkhall.
The NHS Nightingale hospital in London will eventually have enough beds to treat up to 4,000 coronavirus-positive patients. (AP)
"To convert one of the largest national conference centers into a field hospital, starting with 500 beds with a potential of 4,000, is quite frankly incredible,” he added.
The facility was built by hundreds of NHS staff, contractors and soldiers from the British Army, the BBC reports. Patients will only be assigned there once their local London hospital has reached capacity, the NHS says.
Charles, who earlier this week emerged from self-isolation after testing positive for COVID-19, said Friday that he was one of “the lucky ones” who only had mild symptoms, but "for some, it will be a much harder journey.”
He expressed his hope that the hospital “is needed for as short a time and for as few people as possible.”
NHS staff gather during the opening of the Nightingale Hospital at the ExCel center in London on Friday. (AP)
The hospital is named after Florence Nightingale, who is widely considered to be the founder of modern nursing. She was in charge of nursing British and allied soldiers in Turkey during the Crimean War of the 1850s.
Natalie Grey, the head of nursing at NHS Nightingale, unveiled the plaque formally opening the hospital on the prince's behalf.
Further new hospitals are being planned across the U.K., including in Birmingham, Glasgow and Manchester, to alleviate the pressure on the NHS during the coronavirus pandemic.
“In these troubled times with this invisible killer stalking the whole world, the fact that in this country we have the NHS is even more valuable than before,” said Health Secretary Matt Hancock, who also contracted COVID-19 and only emerged from his self-isolation on Thursday.
As of Friday, the U.K. has 38,659 confirmed coronavirus cases, with 2,926 deaths, according to statistics from Johns Hopkins University.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
