Beijing's Xiaotangshan Hospital to open soon

Beijing's Xiaotangshan Hospital, which was built to treat patients infected with severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) in 2003, will complete renovations soon and is currently undergoing final preparations before being put into use.

The hospital, in the capital's northwest Changping district, had finished major construction of five three-story inpatient buildings on the original site of SARS ward buildings, Beijing News reported on Tuesday.

In the next step, installation of medical facilities and equipment will begin and some small-scale one-floor ward buildings near inpatient facilities will be finished soon.

Lei Haichao, director of the Beijing Municipal Health Commission, said on Jan 30 after a daily news briefing on the contagion in Beijing, that the capital has upgraded preventitive measures to start rebuilding the Xiaotangshan Hospital - an "instant infirmary" built in seven days in April 2003, and it will now be used to treat patients infected with novel coronavirus.

"The three-story buildings will be used as wards for novel coronavirus pneumonia patients and connecting parts between each building don't have stairs as robots can use those channels to transport equipment and deliver food," a construction worker told Beijing News on Tuesday.

According to earlier Caixin media reports, the newly-rebuilt Xiaotangshan Hospital will have an inpatient area, dining room, medical technology building as well as an intensive care unit.

The previous Xiaotangshan Hospital with a functional area of 25, 000 square meters could hold 1,000 patients and treated one seventh of SARS patients in two months in 2003, according to Beijing News. On April 2, 2010, the capital's health authority announced that the SARS wards at Xiaotangshan Hospital would be demolished.

Starting from Jan 24, nearly 5,000 construction workers had begun construction on the renovated hospital working in shifts 24 hours every day, Beijing News reported.