Coronavirus: Tottenham Hotspur Stadium to host NHS maternity services
Tottenham Hotspur Football Club has offered its stadium as a place to host maternity and antenatal services to allow hospitals to focus on coronavirus.
Pregnancy scans, antenatal clinics, a maternal day unit and a range of other services will be available inside the stadium from today.
The move allows North Middlesex University Hospital to improve capacity and focus on coronavirus.
It will also mean pregnant women can avoid the hospital during the UK coronavirus pandemic.
Spurs opened its Tottenham Hotspur Stadium last April at a cost of up to £1bn. A huge section of Tottenham Hotspur’s stadium has been turned into a makeshift medical centre.
Spurs’ stadium is located just a mile from North Middlesex University Hospital.
A changing room usually used for American Football matches will become a maternal day unit. And a post-match interview area will be a consultation and scanning room.
And a drive-through facility at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium is testing up to 70 NHS workers a day for coronavirus.
“We are so grateful to Tottenham Hotspur for providing their wonderful facilities for our staff, patients, and local community during these difficult times,” North Middlesex University Hospital boss Maria Kane said.
It comes after Spurs chairman Daniel Levy yesterday U-turned on a move to seek government money to pay non-playing staff.
He was set to cut the wages of 550 non-playing staff to 80 per cent of their full salaries. Taxpayers would have paid those wages under the government’s job retention scheme.
Now they will receive their full salaries for April and May, while the club’s board will take salary cuts.