A four-star Madrid hotel – Gran Hotel Colon, which is about a 10-minute walk from the Gregorio Marañon hospital, one of the Spanish capital’s biggest – 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.
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.
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.
Read more via The Local.es
