200-bed Mobile Hospital Being Erected outside CHL

Following Friday's announcement that a mobile hospital is being constructed in anticipation of a large number of COVID-19 patients requiring hospitalisation and treatment, work has commenced in the grounds of the Centre Hospitalier de Luxembourg (CHL) in Strassen.

Cargolux is flying a total of 56 containers in six charter flights from Taranto, near Bari, in southern Italy - a forward supply point used by NATO. Three of these flights have so far arrived in Luxembourg, with the others expected over the week-end. The contents include a full field hospital - remember the field hospital in the 1970s hit tv series M.A.S.H. (Medical Army Surgical Hospital) used during the Korean War? - which is being organised by the NSPA (NATO Support and Procurement Agency) in Capellen.

The aim of this provisional infrastructure is preventative, i.e. to increase the number of beds to accommodate rising cases in the coming weeks. It has a capacity for 200 beds (100 of which are understood to be eqiuipped with respirators), with patients being given 24-hour care, as well as other services.

On Friday evening, Luxembourg's Prime Minister, Xavier Bettel, Minister of Health, Paulette Lenert, and Minister for Defence, François Bausch, visited the site. The Luxembourg government has confirmed that the facility will become operatoional in the coming days.