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Madrid converts hotels into hospitals to treat coronavirus patients

A four-star Madrid hotel has been transformed into a medical care facility to treat people with mild cases of coronavirus in a bid to ease pressure on hospitals grappling with the pandemic.

Published: 19 March 2020 15:49 CET
Madrid converts hotels into hospitals to treat coronavirus patients
Medical staff await the transfer of patients at the Hotel Colon. Photos: AFP

Regional authorities in Madrid, the region of Spain hardest-hit by the outbreak, plan to repurpose more hotels over the coming days to treat coronavirus patients.

This will help “alleviate the pressure” on hospitals which are starting to become overcrowded and free up beds for more seriously ill patients, the regional government of Madrid said in a statement.

Ambulances transported patients to the 359-room Gran Hotel Colon, which is about a 10-minute walk from the Gregorio Marañon hospital, one of the Spanish capital's biggest.

The hotel is made up of two buildings which are linked by a large garden and art gallery.

Medical staff wearing white protective suits, face masks and gloves then began escorting patients inside the building under the glare of TV cameras which were kept at a distance.   

Another four-star Madrid hotel, the Marriott Auditorium, is scheduled to start receiving patients on Friday.

Hoteliers have offered regional authorities the use of a total of 40 hotels in the Madrid region with 9,000 beds to treat coronavirus patients, according to Madrid's main hotel association.   

The hotels will be used to house patients “whose symptoms require medical attention without the need to be hospitalised, both at the start of the disease as well as during the final phase,” the regional government statement
said.   

Spain on Thursday announced that deaths from the novel coronavirus had jumped by nearly 30 percent over the past 24 hours to 767, while the total number of confirmed cases of the disease jumped by around 25 percent to 17,147.

Madrid accounts for 40 percent of the total infections in Spain and two-thirds of the deaths.

Spain has the fourth-highest number of confirmed cases of the virus in the word after China, Italy and Iran and many of its hotels are being emptied by the pandemic.

Health services are at breaking point in the capital as intensive care units across all Madrid’s hospitals reach saturation point and vital equipment is scarce.

On Wednesday morning there were 491 patients with coronavirus in ICU’s at Madrid hospitals fighting for their lives, a figure that had tripled in five days.  But by Thursday that number had soared again by one hundred new critical patients to 590.

Medics complain that they don’t have the equipment they need; not only life-saving ventilators required to treat critical patients fighting pneumonia but basic protective equipment that will keep the staff safe.

On Thursday it was announced that a 52 year-old nurse in the Basque Country had died after contracting covid-19, becoming the first health worker to perish from the virus in Spain.

 

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HEALTH

Danish parties agree to raise abortion limit to 18 weeks

Denmark's government has struck a deal with four other parties to raise the point in a pregnancy from which a foetus can be aborted from 12 weeks to 18 weeks, in the first big change to Danish abortion law in 50 years.

Published: 3 May 2024 08:06 CEST
Danish parties agree to raise abortion limit to 18 weeks

The government struck the deal with the Socialist Left Party, the Red Green Alliance, the Social Liberal Party and the Alternative party, last week with the formal announcement made on Monday  

“In terms of health, there is no evidence for the current week limit, nor is there anything to suggest that there will be significantly more or later abortions by moving the week limit,” Sophie Løhde, Denmark’s Minister of the Interior and Health, said in a press release announcing the deal.

The move follows the recommendations of Denmark’s Ethics Council, which in September 2023 proposed raising the term limit, pointing out that Denmark had one of the most restrictive abortion laws in Western Europe. 

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Under the deal, the seven parties, together with the Liberal Alliance and the Conservatives, have also entered into an agreement to replace the five regional abortion bodies with a new national abortion board, which will be based in Aarhus. 

From July 1st, 2025, this new board will be able to grant permission for abortions after the 18th week of pregnancy if there are special considerations to take into account. 

The parties have also agreed to grant 15-17-year-olds the right to have an abortion without parental consent or permission from the abortion board.

Marie Bjerre, Denmark’s minister for Digitalization and Equality, said in the press release that this followed logically from the age of sexual consent, which is 15 years old in Denmark. 

“Choosing whether to have an abortion is a difficult situation, and I hope that young women would get the support of their parents. But if there is disagreement, it must ultimately be the young woman’s own decision whether she wants to be a mother,” she said. 

The bill will be tabled in parliament over the coming year with the changes then coming into force on June 1st, 2025.

The right to free abortion was introduced in Denmark in 1973. 

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