Without patients or staff, Madrid opens new $119M hospital
MADRID (AP) — Authorities in Spain's capital on Tuesday held a ceremony to open part of a 1,000-bed emergency hospital for COVID-19 patients that critics say is no more than a vanity project, a building with beds not ready to receive patients and unnecessary now that the virus and hospitalizations are waning.
Around 200 health professionals gathered Tuesday at the entrance of the Nurse Isabel Zendal Hospital in Madrid as officials entered the state-of-the-art facility, built in 100 days at a cost of 100 million euros ($119 million), twice the original budget.
Health workers’ unions criticized the project, saying the investment should have gone instead to shoring up an existing public health system run down by years of spending cuts.
Only one of four wings of the 80,000-square-meter hospital (nearly 20 acres) — equivalent to around 10 soccer fields — is set to open initially with 240 beds, although the regional government so far has only enlisted as volunteers about one-sixth of the workers needed.
Madrid's regional president, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, said the hospital is the first of its kind in Europe and that it will help alleviate pressure in other public hospitals by focusing on COVID-19 patients.
“I’m sorry for the criticism. We are saving lives,” Díaz Ayuso said, adding that its location, near the Spanish capital's international airport, will also be an advantage in assuring visitors that the city is safe. "A great public hospital cannot be bad news for anyone.”
The conservative regional leader has been the fiercest critic of how the leftist national government led by Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has handled the pandemic, constantly objecting to preventative measures and advocating for restrictions that try to preserve economic activity.
Although...