Nicola Sturgeon has told how she is “delighted” the £43million emergency hospital set up in Glasgow to deal with coronavirus has not been used.
The First Minister confirmed that the NHS Louisa Jordan at the Scottish Events Campus (SEC) has not admitted any patients throughout the Covid-19 outbreak.
The announcement was made during the daily press briefing at St Andrew’s House in Edinburgh today.
The hospital, which took three weeks to build, was officially opened on April 30 with an initial capacity for 300 patients.
Sturgeon said the hospital played an important role in the contingency plan in the event that other NHS hospitals became overwhelmed with Covid-19 cases.
The SNP leader said: "Hindsight will always be a very valuable thing to have.
"We haven't had to use NHS Louisa Jordan to treat patients so far and do you know what? I'm absolutely delighted about that."
She said use of the emergency hospital would indicate wards at other hospitals had exceeded capacity.
Sturgeon said: "I am really happy we've not had to use the NHS Louisa Jordan but I'm still absolutely of the opinion it was right to prepare it as a contingency."
Health officials are now considering whether the emergency hospital can be used to restart procedures that were paused as a result of the Covid-19 crisis, she said.
The number of coronavirus patients in intensive care has been declining, with 59 confirmed or suspected cases in the units across Scotland on Tuesday.
The hospital at the SEC 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.
