PRESIDENT Donald Trump was rushed to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center on Friday night to be treated for coronavirus.
The hospital in Bethesda, Maryland, is the United States’ biggest military medical center that cares “for the wounded, ill, and injured from global conflicts.”
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Roughly 7,000 staff workers take care of those who are hospitalized – which now includes 74-year-old Trump.
White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany said on Friday that Trump would be spending a “few days” in the hospital’s presidential suite.
The suite, known formally as Ward 71, is equipped to allow the president to keep up with their official duties.
According to USA Today, the presidential suite “is one of six special patient rooms reserved for high-ranking military officers and members of the White House cabinet.”
The suite, as seen in photos, includes bedroom-type areas, living rooms with couches, a doctor’s office, conference room, office space, and a dining room.
The White House controls the entire presidential suite and Walter Reed administrators don’t have unrestricted access, WRC-TV reported.
The suite is run by the White House, not the Defense Department, which oversees the rest of the hospital.
If the White House doctor can’t treat something specifically, the medical center has “prescreened specialists whose background checks are already done are available to the president.”
Trump’s chief of staff has his own office space in the suite, while the White House doctor has sleeping quarters there so they could be constantly there.
According to Connecting Vets, the presidential suite is “specially outfitted with protective devices and communications gear used in support of the president.”
Rear Admiral Connie Mariano, who served in a medical role for former Presidents George HW Bush and Bill Clinton, wrote about it in her 2010 memoir, The White House Doctor.
Mariano explained that presidents and vice presidents “are typically treated at the Medical Evaluation and Treatment Unit (METU) at Walter Reed, in a separate, private METU suite specially equipped for their use.”
The suite where Trump is spending his stay at the medical center was redone in 2011 when the National Naval Medical Center and Walter Reed Army Medical Center merged.
Mariano said the room is around 3,000 square feet and was specifically created so that US presidents could work as usual.
The hospital is located nine miles from the White House in Washington, DC, and sees around 40,000 patients each other.
In all, the center has 244 beds and 50 intensive care unit beds.
Within Walter Reed are 165 “Smart Suites” that are built with “two-way communication devices, audiovisual and wireless capabilities as well as bedside entertainment, all of which can be controlled via a wall-mounted, removable keyboard that the patient has access to at all times.”
The White House said on Friday that Trump was “still in charge” and was not transferring over any power to Vice President Mike Pence.
But, if his health were to get worse, Trump could transfer power to Pence under the 25th Amendment– or the presidential line of succession.
Presidents have only done this three times since 1967 when the amendment was ratified, according to The New York Times.
Former President Ronald Reagan did so in 1985 when he underwent a colonoscopy, giving ower to Vice President George HW Bush.
When George W Bush underwent colonoscopies in 2002 and 2007, he turned power over to Vice President Dick Cheney.
Late on Friday after Trump’s hospitalization, White House doctor Sean P Conley said Trump was given a dose of Remdesivir.
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Conley said in a later update on Friday that Trump was “doing very well” and “is not requiring any supplemental oxygen.”
The doctor said Trump was given a dose of Remdesivir– used for the treatment of Ebola, SARS, and hepatitis C – and is “resting comfortably.”
Trump tweeted while at Walter Reed: “Going well, I think! Thank you to all. LOVE!!!”