The vaccination point will continue to operate at the National Stadium and vaccinations will take place according to the scheduled dates.
Radek Pietruszka/PAP
The Covid hospital at the National Stadium in Warsaw will be closed from Sunday, the head of the Prime Minister’s Office Michał Dworczyk has said.
The hospital, located in the confines of Poland’s biggest sporting arena, was the flagship temporary hospital used in the country’s fight against the coronavirus.
The suspension of its operations is highly symbolic of the apparent success of the vaccination programme, which has contributed to a massive reduction in infection rates.
“The last patient from the temporary hospital at the National Stadium will be discharged this Sunday, and the hospital’s operation will be suspended,” Michał Dworczyk said on Wednesday.
Dworczyk said that it was the first temporary hospital built in Poland during the Covid-19 pandemic.
“Within 12 days of the decision by Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, the hospital was built and handed over to the hospital of the Ministry of Interior and Administration in Warsaw. And on the 17th day after the decision was issued, the first patient was admitted,” said Dworczyk.
He added that over 1,800 patients in total received help in the hospital, and that it has also served as a vaccination centre, with over a 250,000 carried out so far on its premises.
Meanwhile, the interior ministry wrote on Twitter that the vaccination point will continue to operate at the National Stadium and that vaccinations will take place according to the scheduled dates.
The information was later confirmed the official government website, gov.pl.
But Dworczyk also said that although the hospital will be partially dismantled, most of the infrastructure will remain in case the epidemic situation deteriorates sharply.
Since it opened, the stadium hospital has attracted significant criticism, with its detractors claiming that it is under-used and provides little return for the huge sums invested in it.
According to two MPs for the opposition Civic Coalition (KO), Dariusz Joński and Michał Szczerba, who in January reviewed the government’s Covid-19 policies as part of their parliamentary duties, adapting Poland’s National Stadium in Warsaw into a temporary Covid-19 hospital cost PLN 18 million (EUR 3.98 million).
They also pointed out that the cost did not include returning the property to its original state or the daily running costs.