Coronavirus: Thunder God Mountain hospital opens in Wuhan after 10 days

The Huoshenshan hospital, built with ‘Chinese speed’ over 10 days and nights, is about to treat its first patients | WATCH

People’s Liberation Army medical staff will soon receive their first ­patients at Wuhan’s new coronavirus hospital, which was built over 10 days with “Chinese speed”.

Many of the 1400 military medical staff sent by President Xi Jinping have arrived at the new 1000-bed Huoshenshan hospital where they will soon begin treating victims in the city where the Lancet medical journal estimates more than 75,000 ­people may have been infected. The virus has killed at least 425 people.

“I think it’s an extraordinary feat that they’ve managed to achieve this. One hopes the quality of the build is good,” said associate professor Sanjaya Senanayake, an infectious diseases specialist at the Australian National University.

The Chinese government has made the construction of Huoshenshan hospital — named after a fire god that drives away plague — the centrepiece of its response to the outbreak, as it attempts to demonstrate it is in control of a health crisis that has quarantined more than 40 million people and shut down much of the world’s second-biggest economy.

The Huoshenshan hospital was built over 10 days with “Chinese speed”.

A second 1500-bed hospital in Wuhan called Leishenshan — named after a thunder god who punishes demons — is still under construction and is scheduled to open on Thursday. The design is a copy of a hospital built in seven days in Beijing to take patients during the 2003 SARS crisis.

Chinese epidemiologist Zhong Nanshan, a key member of China’s response to the severe acute respiratory syndrome, told government-controlled broadcaster CCTV that additional hospital space was crucial to stopping the spread of new infections. “The lack of hospital rooms forced sick people to return home, which is extremely dangerous. So having additional (beds) available is a great improvement,” Dr Zhong told CCTV.

A hospital has been built in Wuhan in 10 days to accommodate #coronavirus patients. How did China make it? pic.twitter.com/A9u82X9Uno

— China Xinhua News (@XHNews) February 3, 2020

Experts involved with building the hospitals told the state-controlled media that quality had not been compromised by the haste.

“We have hundreds of quality inspectors to check every building frame, every welding point,” Xiang Hui, director of construction at the Leishenshan, told the China Daily.

Their construction with what state-controlled media has called “Chinese speed” was live-streamed and watched by tens of millions of Chinese citizens.

An isolation unit is seen at the Huoshenshan hospital in Wuhan. Picture: AP

Even faster than the construction has been the spread of the virus. On January 23 as the Wuhan authorities were enlisting the engineers for the project, there were 571 reported cases of the virus, almost all in Wuhan.

There are now more than 17,300 confirmed cases and at least 425 deaths — all but one of them in China. In China, the epicentre ­remains in Wuhan and its surrounding cities and towns in the central province of Hubei.

Workers on the finishing touches to Wuhan’s Huoshenshan Hospital on Sunday. Picture: Getty Images

Disquiet about the official Chinese response to the crisis — particularly by local government — has also spread throughout the country.

The state-controlled Xinhua News Agency reported that six ­officials in the city of Huanggang, next to Wuhan in Hubei province, were sacked over “poor performance” in handling the outbreak.

Xinhua cited the mayor as saying the city’s “capabilities to treat the patients remained inadequate and there is a severe shortage in medical supplies such as protective suits and medical masks”.