Image: University of the West of England
University of the West of England will also offer accommodation for hospital staff
A field hospital to house the growing number of coronavirus patients is being built at the University of the West of England.
Work is underway to turn the university’s Exhibition and Conference Centre into a temporary 300-bed hospital as the coronavirus crisis squeezes existing hospital capacity. Doctors and nurses working at the Nightingale Hospital Bristol— which is expected to run over the summer before being returned to UWE Bristol for the 2020-21 academic year—will be able to stay in empty student accommodation nearby.
Steve West, UWE Bristol vice-chancellor, said he was pleased to host the field hospital and promised there was “more we will be doing in future to contribute to the national effort” against the coronavirus. “These temporary arrangements on our Frenchay campus have the potential to save many lives and play a vitally important role in limiting the impact of coronavirus in the South West,” he said.
Field hospitals have been announced in Cardiff, Edinburgh and Manchester, and London’s Excel exhibition centre has already been turned into a temporary hospital with capacity for up to 4,000 beds at the peak of the outbreak.
Many other universities are offering their facilities to help medical staff tackle the coronavirus. Coventry University has reopened its £59 million health and life sciences building, which was closed when teaching moved to online only, to help train NHS staff who are taking on extra clinical roles during the coronavirus pandemic.
The University of Glasgow is hosting a coronavirus testing facility, which will begin testing 24 hours a day from the middle of this month at Glasgow’s Queen Elizabeth University Hospital campus. More than 500 volunteers will carry out the testing, including molecular scientists and technicians at Glasgow.
University of Glasgow vice-principal and head of the medical college Anna Dominiczak said she was “incredibly grateful” to staff who have volunteered to work in the testing facility. “As a result of their willingness to help, we have a team of highly skilled people, a clinical space and the core equipment to start work alongside our NHS colleagues immediately,” she said.