AHMEDABAD – At least 16 Covid-19 patients and two nurses died today in the latest in a series of hospital fires in India, local media reported, as the country’s healthcare system buckles under a surge in infections.
There were around 50 other patients at the four-storey hospital in Bharuch, in the western state of Gujarat, when the blaze began at 1am (0730 GMT). It has since been put out.
The death toll stands at 18, local police official Rajendrasinh Chudasama told AFP, comprising “16 patients and two nurses”.
“Primary investigations revealed that the fire started due to a short-circuit in the ICU.”
On April 23, a fire on the outskirts of Mumbai killed 13 coronavirus patients, a few days after a blaze left 22 people dead at another clinic, also in Maharashtra state.
Earlier, 22 Covid-19 patients died at a hospital in the same state when the oxygen supply to their ventilators was disrupted by a leak.
India’s healthcare system has long suffered from underfunding, and the new outbreak has seen critical shortages in oxygen, drugs and hospital beds, with patients dying outside medical facilities in some areas. – AFP, May 1, 2021
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