After turning a car park into an intensive care unit for coronavirus patients, Bahrain has set up its second field hospital – on a man-made island in Sitra.

The facilities are among five that the authorities plan to build to add 500 critical care beds to its health sector in case of a spike in novel coronavirus.

The new 154-bed field hospital, staffed by 55 doctors and 250 nurses, took 14 days to build and adjoins a quarantine camp.

Its large white tents house rows of hospital beds as well as a laboratory, pharmacy and X-ray machines.

Located off the Gulf state’s east coast, it is the first crisis facility set up far from a hospital.

Last month, Bahrain opened its first field hospital, converting a car park outside the Bahrain Defence Force Hospital near Manama into an intensive care unit with 130 beds. The Gulf country, whose population stands at 1.5 million, has recorded more than 3,300 cases of coronavirus, with eight deaths.

SOURCE: GULFINSIDER