Virar (Maharashtra): Thirteen COVID-19 patients died Friday in a blaze at the intensive care unit of a private hospital in Palghar district. Police said the toll may rise as rescue operations are still on. This incident, coming in the backdrop of the Nashik oxygen tragedy will certainly put the MVA government in Maharashtra in a spot of bother.
The fire broke out in the ICU on the second floor of the four-storeyed Vijay Vallabh Hospital at Virar shortly after 3.00am, an official said. Firefighters extinguished the blaze at 5.20 am, he added.
There were 17 patients in the ICU when the fire broke out, the official said. Four patients were rescued and shifted to other hospitals in the area, the official said. This town is approximately 50km away from Mumbai.
The tragedy comes two days after 22 COVID-19 patients who were either on ventilator or oxygen support, suffocated to death. It happened when their oxygen supply stopped suddenly due to a malfunction in the main storage at a civic hospital in Nashik.
District Disaster Control Cell chief Vivekanand Kadam told this agency that the Virar hospital fire was preceded by an explosion in the AC unit of the intensive care unit. Relatives of the deceased reached the hospital soon after hearing of the incident. They demanded stringent action be taken against those responsible for the tragedy.
Ten infants were killed in a fire that broke out at a special newborn care unit of the Bhandara district hospital in Maharashtra January 9. Seventeen infants, aged one to three months, were admitted to the ward at the time of the tragedy.