The emergency field hospital at the Lumley Bayshore in Owen Sound has had no patients.

The 75-bed facility was created by Grey Bruce Health Services and the city of Owen Sound a month ago in case it was needed to help the hospital cope with COVID 19 patients.

Hospital CEO Gary Sims said it’s a positive the field hospital hasn’t been needed. He said it cost about $1 million and it’s still undetermined how much they’ll be reimbursed by the province.

“I would have done this quite frankly with or without funding. I was the right thing to do. My board has always instructed me and supported me in doing what is right and we felt that doing this was the right thing to do for now and in the future,” said Sims.

He added the field hospital will likely be taken down by the end of June unless it still turns out to be needed. The component parts will be stored for use in the future if necessary.

Meanwhile, Sims said the Owen Sound hospital is prepared to resume normal operations as the COVID-19 situation improves. He said there have been obvious disruptions due to the virus but they’ll be able to cope.

“We are going to have longer waiting lists but we’ll do our very best to try to address those going forward and to try to recover most of our services as quickly as we can, as safely as we can without risking both our staff and patient safety,” added Sims.

Sims praised all staff at the Owen Sound hospital for performing unfailingly during the crisis.