An emergency hospital for coronavirus patients is ready to receive patients.
Construction of NHS Louisa Jordan at the Scottish Events Campus (SEC) in Glasgow was completed on Sunday.
The hospital will have an initial capacity for 300 beds, which can be expanded to more than 1000 if needed.
Health secretary Jeane Freeman said the number of coronavirus cases will be monitored in Scotland before the new hospital is brought into use.
She said: “The decision on whether patients need to be admitted to the Louisa Jordan will be reviewed on a regular basis as the data on case numbers continues to come forward.
“As I’ve said before, I hope that this facility will not be needed, but it is valuable to have this extra capacity and I’m grateful to everyone who has delivered this hospital at such speed.”
A total of 903 people who tested positive for coronavirus in Scotland have now died.
The hospital is named after Glasgow-born First World War nurse Sister Louisa Jordan, who died on active service in Serbia in 1915 as part of the Scottish Women’s Hospitals for Foreign Services.
Chief executive of the hospital, Jill Young, said she was “truly amazed” by the scale of the project and the speed with which it had been constructed.
Ms Young told the Good Morning Scotland show that officials currently expect the hospital to be in place for five months, although that can be extended if required.
More than 100 staff carried out their induction training last week, and although some hospital staff are already in place, more will arrive in phases as the number of patients increase.
Ms Young said: “We need a minimum staff here to make sure that things are safe and secure and that infection control is well controlled, so that we are ready to open on the very first day when patients arrive.”
Explaining that the hospital is only for patients with coronavirus, but not for people needing intensive care treatment, Ms Young added: “Clearly though, we have made provision for high dependency here because we have to take into account that some patients may deteriorate when they are here.
“So we have the ability to stabilise them and get them returned by ambulance to an appropriate critical care unit.”
Following the completion of the hospital, Murray Crone, the great nephew of Ms Jordan, said: “The members of our family have been very touched by the dedication, as we have been familiar with her story for many years.
“It is so pleasing that she would be chosen now as a representative of all the volunteers in the Scottish Women’s Hospital during WW1, coping with a typhus epidemic in Serbia.
“And, of course, also representing all the present day medical workers doing their utmost at this time, fighting against Covid-19.”
Scottish Liberal Democrat Willie Rennie, Mr Crone’s MSP, added: “Health professionals, civil servants, builders, electricians and the army all deserve our unending thanks for putting the NHS Louisa Jordan together at such an exceptional pace.
“We all hope that this extra intensive care capacity won’t have to be called on at all, but it is reassuring that is there.
“I know my constituent Murray Crone is delighted that his great aunt Louisa Jordan has been recognised by the Government.”
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