20 April, 2020

Prince William officially opens COVID-19 hospital in Birmingham’s National Exhibition Centre

Birmingham, UK - 6 November 2016: Exterior Of The Birmingham National Exhibition Centre NEC

Another of the United Kingdom’s major exhibition centres to be turned into COVID-19 hospitals has officially opened.

Prince William has formally opened the National Health Service Nightingale Hospital Birmingham, housed in the UK’s converted National Exhibition Centre (NEC).

The Duke of Cambridge praised staff of Britain’s National Health Service (NHS) for their “herculean efforts” to set up the massive new hospital within two weeks to deal with more COVID-19 patients.

The second of Britain’s event centres to be repurposed as hospitals, after the conversion of London’s enormous ExCeL Exhibition Centre, the NHS Nightingale Hospital Birmingham has an initial capacity of 500 beds, scalable to 1,500.

Speaking via video link, Prince William officially opened the hospital by speaking of the “selfless commitment” of the NHS’ staff, and said the hospital would go down in history.

“I can’t congratulate and thank all of you enough for all of your hard work in putting this together,” he said.

“It’s a herculean effort and you should be, rightly, very proud of what you’ve achieved.”

You can check out more of what the Duke of Cambridge had to say below:

It follows the official opening by Prince Charles of the new NHS Nightingale at the ExCeL Centre in London, which joins Birmingham and a facility in Manchester as being ready to take patients.

Based in the London Docklands, the temporary facility was built in nine days and is now considered the largest critical care unit in the world, which Prince Charles said would serve as a “shining light” during Britain’s COVID-19 lockdown.

“To convert one of the largest national conference centres into a field hospital, starting with 500 beds and with a potential of 4,000, is quite frankly incredible,” he said.

Both the Birmingham and London Nightingale hospitals are two of seven sites that have been set up to provide surge capacity across England for relief to its health services, as they respond to “the greatest global health emergency in more than a century”.

As of 5pm on 19 April, of those hospitalised in the UK who tested positive for coronavirus, 16,509 have died.

Sir Simon Stevens, chief executive of NHS England, said: “We have not yet had to make extensive use of the Nightingale London thanks to the hard work of NHS staff, who have freed up more than 30,000 existing hospital beds, and the public, who have played their part by staying at home and saving lives.

“It will count as a huge success for the whole country if we never need to use them, but with further waves of coronavirus possible, it is important that we have these extra facilities in place and treating patients.”

Another Nightingale Hospital in Harrogate, North Yorkshire was due to open on Tuesday (local time) in the Harrogate Convention Centre.

The new hospital will provide 500 beds, and is the first of the field hospitals to be built outside the city.

Captain Tom Moore, a 99-year-old war veteran who raised an incredible £26 million (more than $51 million) for the NHS, was announced as the guest of honour for the opening of the Harrogate hospital.

According to BBC News, Moore originally aimed to raise £1,000 (almost $2,000) for NHS Charities Together by completing 100 laps of his garden before his 100^th birthday.

Featured image: Birmingham National Exhibition Centre in 2017 (iStock.com/monkeybusinessimages)

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COVID-19 ExCeL Exhibition Centre National Exhibition Centre National Health Service Nightingale Hospital Birmingham NHS Nightingale Hospital London