5,000-bed hospital to be built in Haiti

January 27th, 2010 - 2:25 am ICT by BNO News  

haiti-death-toll PORT-AU-PRINCE, HAITI (BNO NEWS) – U.S. and international relief workers in Haiti on Tuesday announced plans to develop 5,000-bed hospital in the capital of Port-au-Prince.

The hospital will accept patients from the floating hospital ship USNS Comfort, where more than 100 surgeries have been performed since arriving at the Haitian coast last week.

Though still weeks away from becoming fully operational, U.S. medical equipment that will outfit the additional hospital in northern Port-au-Prince has begun to arrived, Army Lt. Gen. P.K. Keen, the top U.S. commander in Haiti, told Pentagon reporters today.

“We are anticipating to at least get the seeds of that hospital up within the next week or so, but that we’ll begin small and then grow from there,” Keen said via teleconference from Haiti. “We are hoping to be able to at least start with a 250-man centerpiece.”

Keen said the Haitian government quickly granted a request for a large piece of land — situated near the hospital ship and also accessible by road — that could host the 5,000-bed hospital.

International aid continues pouring into Haiti in the midst of what an official called one of the greatest humanitarian emergencies in the history of the Americas. Among those assets is the USNS Comfort, on which U.S. medical personnel has taken aboard nearly 400 patients, performed more than 100 surgeries and filled more than 11,800 prescriptions since its Jan. 20 arrival.

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