Expert to discuss construction of anti-pandemic hospital projects at PolyU

Leading expert on hospital construction will sit down on Tuesday afternoon with students from the Hong Kong Polytechnic University to discuss the innovative technology used in the city's two anti-pandemic hospital projects, which were built with the help of the central government.

Zhang Yi, CEO of the China State Construction International Medical Industry Development Cooperation Limited, is expected to share the difficulties and innovative practices during the construction of temporary hospital of Hong Kong, which is now called North Lantau Hospital Hong Kong Infection Control Centre, and the COVID-19 community treatment facility at AsiaWorld-Expo, completed in October last year.

The event is a second lecture, out of a total of four, given by members of a delegation of the nation's top architectural engineering experts, who arrived in the city on Sunday for a six-day visit. A similar lecture was held at the University of Hong Kong on Monday by Xiao Xuwen, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and chief expert of the China State Construction Engineering Corp.

A six-day exhibition featuring the nation's architectural and construction achievement and history also kicked off on Monday.

In the following days, two other lectures will be held at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

Undertaken by the China State Construction International Holdings Limited, the project of temporary hospital was constructed with the assistance of Shenzhen government.

At the peak of the project, the number of workers was nearly 4,000, and the construction work ran 24 hours a day with a tight schedule and frequent cross-operations. In a bid to ensure the personnel safety on the construction site, the project team also adopted an intelligent tracking system.

The temporary hospital comprises six two-storey ward blocks, which can accommodate about 820 beds.

Together with the community treatment facility expansion completed in early October last year, the central government has in total provided an extra of 1,800 wards for Hong Kong, greatly increasing the resilience of the city's healthcare system against the pandemic, said Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor during a handover ceremony of the infection control center on Jan 20.