Three people died in a fire in a Covid unit at a Ukrainian hospital, caused by the lighting of a candle.
A fire started by a candle ravaged an intensive care unit for Covid-19 patients in Ukraine, killing at least three and injuring four, emergency services said on Wednesday.
According to this source, a hospital employee lit a candle on Tuesday evening to pay tribute to a patient who recently died of Covid, in this establishment in the city of Kossiv (west).
But on contact with the saturated air of the intensive care unit, where five oxygen concentrators were operating, this heat source “immediately” ignited medical equipment.
“Ignorance of the elementary laws of physics and disregard for safety rules have led to irreparable losses,” the relief workers lamented in a statement.
Frequent fires
Three people, including two patients, died in the fire on the ground floor of the building. The identity of the third deceased person was not known, as was the fate of the employee who lit the candle.
Four people were also injured, including two very seriously burned, added the emergency services.
In Ukraine, as in the whole of the former USSR, fires and other accidents in hospitals or retirement homes are frequent, due to dilapidated infrastructure or neglect.
In February, four people were killed in a fire in a unit for Covid patients in Zaporozhe, in southern Ukraine.
The same month, a Covid patient was killed in the explosion of an oxygen source in a hospital in Chernivtsi (west).
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