The Athletes Village built for Lima's Pan American Games is put into service again —as a hospital treating hundreds of COVID-19 patients.
"Every patient who's discharged is a win for us," said Maritza Huapaya, head nurse at the overflow facility set up at the venue to treat the South American country's huge caseload.
Lima hosted the Pan American Games in 2019, and the purpose-built athletes' compound hosted thousands of competitors and their delegations.
It has proved a rare bright spot in the country's grim fight against the disease, as more than 10,000 patients have recovered there and been sent home.
One of the oldest survivors, 97-year-old Maria Isabel Velasco, was wheeled out of the hospital amid fanfare on Wednesday as nurses in light blue biosafety overalls released colorful balloons and danced to cumbia music, celebrating another small win against the coronavirus.
A sign said: "Believe in yourself, everything is possible."
"She is leaving totally recovered and lucid," said Carlos Olivera, the director of the facility.
Peru, with more than 660,000 infections and nearly 30,000 deaths to date, is Latin America's second hardest-hit country after Brazil.
It has the world's highest mortality rate from COVID-19 —90.48 per 100,000 inhabitants, according to data published by Johns Hopkins University in the United States.
The regions Cusco, Moquegua, Puno and Tacna will remain in lockdown.
Life
In the former athletes' facility, more than 1,000 apartments were in the process of being refurbished for sale when the pandemic struck and the government turned four of the complex's seven buildings into a hospital for COVID-19 patients.
The facility has lost only 53 patients among the more than 12,000 it has treated over the past five months, with more than 10,500 discharged and recovered, officials said.
Around 1,600 people are hospitalized there at any one time.
Cesar Sayan, 64, was admitted with breathing difficulties in early August.
"Now that I'm going home after 33 days, I am grateful to God for giving me this opportunity," Sayan told AFP.
More than 1,000 people, including 325 doctors and 354 nurses, work in the emergency hospital in the south of Lima.
"This is a small town that has become our new home," said nurse Huapaya, 53, who has lived and worked in the so-called Pan American Village since March.
"The Village is life," she concluded.
(END) AFP/LIQ/MVB