Three people died of fire in hospital in Syria’s Aleppo
ALEPPO, Syria (North Press) – An electrical short, as a result of negligence by the medical and administrative staff in al-Andalus Private Hospital in the city of Aleppo, north Syria, led to the death of 3 people on Tuesday morning.
“The cause of the fire was an electrical short in one of the elderly patients’ rooms, which made it difficult for them to move and get out,” North Press reported an official in the hospital.
One of the patients’ escorts told North Press that the night staff in the hospital did not take the patients out, nor did they provide them with oxygen, which caused the death of three people.
“There is no ambulance for the hospital, and the Red Crescent cars arrived 40 minutes late after the incident in tandem with the arrival of the firefighting vehicles that put out the fire,” he said.
“Smoke rose from the basement to us. We could no longer see, and we called for help, but the hospital staff asked us to close the door and stay in the room,” North Press reported an elderly mother’s escort.
“Because of the intensity of the smoke, we broke the window so that my mother could breathe. The difficulty of breathing led to blood coming out of her mouth, without the intervention of the night staff to secure the oxygen cylinders to help her breathe,” she added.
The Police Department in al-Shahba prevented a North Press reporter from entering the hospital and documenting the causes of the fire.