Chongqing- Pursuing measures designed to protect each individual's life, more makeshift hospitals are being built in Southwest China's Chongqing Municipality to boost its treatment capacity for COVID-19 infections, with emergency treatment, clinical testing, and other functions to treat patients with mild symptoms. According to a news conference on 22 November by the information office of the municipal government, there will be 88,000 beds for makeshift hospitals in the city. 

Makeshift hospitals in Chongqing Yuelai International Exhibition Center, Nanping District, and Bishan District have been put into use, with the construction of Yinglong Makeshift Hospital and Cuntan Makeshift Hospital being accelerated.

Behind the makeshift hospital are countless Chongqing builders' hard work and race against the clock.

Five days to build the city's largest makeshift hospital

On the evening of November 21, the largest makeshift hospital in the city, Yinglong Makeshift Hospital in Nanan District, was completed, with a total area of 380,000 square meters and 26,313 beds.

From start to finish, the construction took just five days. Behind this reflects the speed of the project construction units, China Metallurgical Construction Engineering Group and China Construction Third Engineering Bureau Group Co., Ltd.

To build the Yinglong Makeshift Hospital, the construction team needs to rebuild the original place, Yinglong Chaotianmen International Trade City, including dismantling the original decoration inside the building and replacing the old wires, rearranging the drainage system, and installing the exhaust system and beds.

"We organized five engineering and installation companies as soon as possible to raise resources and gathered more than 5,000 builders to participate in the project," said Xiong Shuijin, deputy chief engineer of China Metallurgical Construction Engineering Group and site leader of the project.

The circuit installation team led by Wang Yu also needs to lay 27 kilometers of optical cable, 280 kilometers of network cable, 10 kilometers of the broadcast system, and 30 kilometers of call system lines within 72 hours. When short of the workforce, the team resorted to two, three, or even overnight shifts to complete the construction task.

After five days of hard work, Yinglong Makeshift Hospital was put into operation and started to accept patients.

Mature technology in the makeshift hospital's construction

At 4 pm on November 22, the construction site of Cuntan Makeshift Hospital in Chongqing Jiangbei District was busy with workers installing facilities. Chongqing Cuntan Makeshift Hospital has two zones, which can provide 20,728 beds.

"According to the design, the construction area is 66,000 square meters, including the hospital cabin, medical work area, cleaning warehouse, and transport vehicle cleaning area," said Ren Yongchang, China Construction Eighth Engineering Division Corp., Ltd.

Ren continued that the construction technology of makeshift hospitals has been very mature. It is divided into foundation construction, installation of movable board rooms, and decoration in board rooms. To ensure on-time delivery, they used Building Information Modeling (BIM) technology and prefabricated construction technique to arrange the construction period.

Cuntan Makeshift Hospital's toilets, showers, sewage treatment, and doctors' offices are all prefabricated constructions which can minimize construction time.

According to Ren, most of the workers on site are high-skilled, with experience constructing makeshift hospitals in Qingdao, Guangzhou, and Shanghai. They significantly improved construction efficiency.