Fletcher, Van der Valk make hotels available for treating coronavirus patients

Hotel chains Fletcher and Van der Valk are making hotels available as care centers for coronavirus patients and other patients to leave more room in hospitals. More than a hundred locations are ready to be converted for patient care within a short time, the two chains confirmed to NU.nl.

The initiative came from the safety regions, who contacted hotel chains with the aim to ease the increasing pressure on hospitals. The hotels can accommodate Covid-19 patients who are too sick to be at home, but not so sick as to need hospital care. Separate hotels can also open for patients with other illnesses, so that there is more room in hospitals to treat coronavirus patients.

The first hotel care center will open in a Van der Valk Hotel in Urmond, Limburg this week. And such centers can be opened across the country. "A roadmap is now ready for this," Rob Hermans, general manager of Fletcher, said to the newspaper. "Our hotels have been brought to the highest level of preparedness. One hundred locations can now be made available within 24 hours at the touch of a button."

Fletcher alone can make 14 thousand beds available throughout the Netherlands, according to Hermans.