Scotland's Covid-19 hospital NHS Louisa Jordan set to close

The emergency hospital set up in response to the coronavirus pandemic in Glasgow is set to close this month.

The NHS Louisa Jordan was built inside the SEC Centre to increase the capacity of Scotland’s NHS to deal with Covid-19 patients, but was not required to treat those suffering from the virus.

Costing in the region of £70m, the hospital became operational in April 2020 and has carried out 32,000 medical appointments and vaccinated 170,000 people.

The facility will shut down on March 31, a little over a year from when it first opened, with the mass vaccination centre relocating to the nearby SSE Hydro.

The SEC Centre (Scottish Events Campus) will be returned to a working events and conference centre, including preparing to host COP26.

Health secretary Jeane Freeman said: “I want to thank everyone who has supported the establishment of NHS Louisa Jordan.

“From the contractors involved in the building work, to the support staff who have worked throughout and the staff who have treated patients and administered Covid vaccinations, each one of them has played a vitally important role in helping to protect our NHS and save lives.

“We said from the start that this facility has a vital part of our Covid-19 contingency planning but we hoped it would not be needed to treat Covid patients. Thanks to the continued efforts of the public, we have been able to maintain capacity in our hospitals across the country and use this facility to remobilise health services and treat patients whose healthcare had to be cancelled last year due to Covid.”