UPDATE - Turkish president opens giant city hospital in Istanbul

***UPDATED WITH MORE REMARKS

By Erdogan Cagatay Zontur and Gokhan Ergocun

ANKARA (AA) – Turkey’s president on Monday cut the ribbon on a 2,700-bed giant hospital in the metropolis Istanbul to strengthen the nation’s fight against coronavirus.

"Turkey, standing on its own two feet, is demonstrating its power at a time when international organizations are losing their meaning," Recep Tayyip Erdogan told the opening ceremony of the new Basaksehir City Hospital in Istanbul.

Erdogan also said that on its own, after producing 100 domestic ventilators already, Turkish manufacturers have pledged to produce 5,000 a month by the end of May.

“While the world is facing difficulties, Turkey has successfully overcome hurdles to [making] medical ventilators,” Erdogan added.

Also speaking at the event, Health Minister Fahrettin Koca said at the new facility, built to fight COVID-19: "Just as all city hospitals in Turkey, all the beds at Basaksehir City Hospital – 2,686 beds – have intensive care equipment, and all can be used for intensive care when necessary.”

"I would like to say that there is no other country in the world with this wealth," he added.

Koca went on to say that 155 ventilators have been installed in 155 intensive care units at the new hospital.

"During this epidemic, ventilators, the respiratory device used in intensive care, and intensive care units, are the hardest [machines] in the world to get ahold of,” Koca added.

Saying that some of the tested ventilators were delivered to the Health Ministry on Monday, Mustafa Varank, technology and industry minister, said: "Hopefully, 5,000 devices will be produced by the end of May."

While the novel coronavirus pandemic has incapacitated many developed countries, Turkey is still standing tall, he stressed.

Ventilators are nearly impossible to buy, Varank said, adding: "That's why we took action at the very beginning of the process to produce these devices using our own means."

A Turkish technology enterprise, BIOSYS, developed the device, and after the pandemic hit, Turkish firms launched a mobilization to start mass production of the device, he said.

The minister added that dozens of Turkish engineers worked hard and managed to set up mass production of the first indigenous intensive care ventilator in just 14 days.

The coronavirus death toll in Turkey reached 2,017 as of Sunday, with 86,306 cases to date.

After originating in China last December, COVID-19, the disease caused by coronavirus, has spread to at least 185 countries and regions across the world.

The pandemic has killed nearly 166,000 people, with total infections exceeding 2.41 million, according to figures compiled by the U.S.’ Johns Hopkins University.