Photo/Illutration Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike inspects a makeshift hospital for seniors with the novel coronavirus in the capital’s Arakawa Ward on Feb. 20. The person in the bed is a mock patient. (Naoko Kawamura)

Tokyo officials opened a makeshift hospital for elderly patients with COVID-19 on Feb. 21, targeting those who contracted the virus at senior facilities.

The opening comes as infected seniors find it increasingly difficult in the capital to receive treatment at regular hospitals amid a spike in cases among older adults.

The emergency facility is set up in a former medical center of Tokyo Women’s Medical University in Arakawa Ward.

It is aimed at patients with mild and moderate symptoms after they become infected with the coronavirus in outbreaks at facilities for the elderly.

It will also treat emergency cases and admit patients who are recovering from the disease after they were first treated at other hospitals.

Reporters were allowed to have a preview of the facility on Feb. 20 when Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike inspected the site.

“Senior patients’ hospitalizations tend to last longer,” Koike said, referring to the trend of many elderly patients developing serious symptoms. “We need to prepare more beds to grapple with the rise in patients in serious condition.”

The facility, staffed with two doctors, 22 nurses and two physical therapists, is expected to operate with 50 beds at first. It will add up to 100 more beds, depending on the spread of infections in Tokyo.

It is one of the emergency facilities that the Tokyo metropolitan government is working to open to treat a total of 660 patients who are at heightened risk of a serious health condition, such as elderly people and pregnant women.

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