Evacuated patients are treated on beds in a temporary tents after a fire broke out on the second floor of the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) of Hospital Sultanah Aminah in Johor Bahru in southern state of Johor, Malaysia Tuesday, Oct. 25, 2016. The fire at the hospital has killed several patients and triggered the evacuation of hundreds of others. (AP Photo) </s> Three Indian-origin Malaysians were among six persons killed today when a fire broke out at the intensive care unit of a major government hospital in southern Malaysia's Johor Baru.



 The fire, which broke out on the second floor of the Sultanah Aminah Hospital early morning, forced the mass evacuation of hundreds of patients and medical staff.



 According to police, four women and two men, all in their 50s, died in the fire. The deceased include two ethnic Indian women and an ethnic Indian man, police added.



 "The government will conduct a thorough investigation as soon as possible to identify the cause of the fire and the safety level (at the hospital)," Malaysia's Prime minister Najib Razak tweeted.



 There were a total of 193 staff and 294 patients at the hospital when the fire broke out. A few others were injured in the blaze.



 Meanwhile, the Sultan of Johor state Ibrahim Ibni Almarhum Sultan Iskandar has instructed the hospital authorities to use the royal ward for patients as the intensive care unit (ICU) was badly damaged in the fire.



 Founded in 1882, Sultanah Aminah Hospital is a government-funded multi-specialty hospital. It is the biggest hospital in Johor. </s> Six patients - four women and two men - were killed in a fire at the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) of the Sultanah Aminah Hospital in Johor Bahru.

JOHOR BAHRU: Six patients - four women and two men - were killed in a fire at the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) of Johor's biggest hospital.

The fire on level two of the Sultanah Aminah Hospital (HSA) started at around 8.55am on Tuesday (Oct 25).

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Director of Johor's Fire and Rescue Department Othman Abdullah said 166 firemen and 10 emergency vehicles were rushed to HSA at 8.56am.

Mr Othman said those who were killed were among the seven patients in the southern ICU on the second floor of the hospital. One patient was rescued by firefighters, he added.

"There were seven critically ill patients in the ICU who, according to doctors, were dependent on ventilators under normal circumstances and could not be moved without their beds," he said, adding that the fire did not spread to other areas of the hospital.

Patients evacuated from HSA were taken to other hospitals in the state, Health Ministry director-general Noor Hisham Abdullah said in a statement.

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Providing further details on the incident at a press conference, health minister Dr S Subramaniam confirmed that in addition to the patients, there were 10 members of staff in the ICU when the fire broke out.

Dr Subramaniam said that the members of staff sustained injuries and three were receiving assisted ventilation at a nearby hospital.

Video: HSA fire press conference 1

Said the minister: "The sprinkler system was operational and officers on duty also tried to use a fire extinguisher, but both steps were unsuccessful in controlling the fire, which was spreading rapidly.

"This is an incident where all the preparations we had made were unable to help control the fire. This could be because of the ICU environment - patients were on oxygen machines and fire needs oxygen. That could be why the flames spread so rapidly and so intensely. It became uncontrollable in seconds."



Malaysia's Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi and Health Minister Dr S. Subramaniam examine the damage to the Sultanah Aminah hospital following the fire on Tuesday (Oct 25). (Photo: Amir Yusof)

"DARK ... SMOKE EVERYWHERE"

Earlier in the day, Johor Bahru Selatan Police Chief ACP Sulaiman Salleh said five of the bodies were found at 11.15am and the sixth a little later.

Chief firefighter Muhammad Rizal Bin Buang described the scene when he arrived at the ICU ward.

"When we entered the ward, it was already dark and there was smoke everywhere. But thankfully, we managed to contain the fire to that specific ward. We tried to save the seven patients, who all needed oxygen assistance as part of their treatment. But we could only rescue one in time. We are still investigating the source of the fire," he added.

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An eyewitness, Habibah Abd Ghani, 37, said she was not aware of the fire and only realised it after she was out of the building.



"During the incident, I was in the fourth floor ward with my father who was admitted for pain in his ribs. Then I heard a commotion and was asked by the nurse to get out of the ward."



She added: "The situation was under control as we went down the stairs, assisted by the hospital employees."

FB scenes outside hospital

Dr Subramaniam said the cause of the fire will be revealed only after the investigation and advised against speculation. However, eyewitnesses claimed they first saw smoke and fire coming out of a treatment room in the ICU, he added.



In a tweet posted earlier, Malaysia's Prime Minister Najib Razak also said: "The government will conduct a thorough investigation as soon as possible to identify the cause of the fire."



Dr Subramaniam said he met the families of victims at the mortuary before his press conference.



"I know it's hard for them to accept what's happened. I pray for strength for them to overcome this. I've asked the hospital to provide aid to the families," he said.



The Health Ministry announced on Tuesday evening that it will be setting up a special committee to investigate the incident. </s> JOHOR BAHRU: A fire at the Sultanah Aminah Hospital here today resulted in the deaths of six patients at an intensive care unit, according to the Johor Fire and Rescue Department.

Its director, Othman Abdullah, said they were among the seven patients in the southern ICU on the second floor of the hospital.

One patient was rescued by firefighters who rushed there after being notified at 8.56am, he added.

“There were seven critically ill patients in the ICU who, according to doctors, were dependent on ventilators under normal circumstances and could not be moved without their beds,” he said.

Othman said the department rushed 10 trucks and 166 firefighters to the hospital soon after it was summoned.

He said the fire did not spread to other areas of the hospital.

Meanwhile, Johor Bahru Selatan Police chief ACP Sulaiman Salleh said five of the bodies were found at 11.15am and the sixth a little later.

He advised the public not to be taken in by unverified information. – Bernama </s> Staff unable to save patients too sick to be moved without their bed and ventilators from fire

JOHOR BAHRU: A fire at the Sultanah Aminah Hospital here yesterday resulted in the deaths of six patients at an intensive care unit,according to the Johor Fire and Rescue Department.

Its director, Othman Abdullah, said they were among the seven patients in the southern ICU on the second floor of the hospital.

One patient was rescued by firefighters who rushed there after being notified at 8.56am, he added.

“There were seven critically ill patients in the ICU who, according to doctors were dependent on ventilators under normal circumstances and could not be moved without their beds,” he said.

Othman said the department rushed 10 trucks and 166 firefighters to the hospital soon after it was summoned.

He said the fire did not spread to other areas of the hospital.

Meanwhile, Johor Bahru Selatan Police chief ACP Sulaiman Salleh said five of the bodies were found at 11.15am and the sixth a little later.

He advised the public not to be taken in by unverified information.

Meanwhile an eyewitness, Habibah Abd Ghani, 37, said she was not aware of the fire and only realised it after she was out of the building.

“During the incident, I was in the fourth floor ward accompanying my father who is admitted for pain in the rib.

“Then I heard a commotion and was asked by the nurse to get out of the ward. The situation was under control when we go down the stairs, assisted by the hospital staff,” she said when met by reporters here.

Habibah also saw many patients and hospital staff in and around the hospital at that time.

A Bernama survey at noon revealed the hospital compound was still congested with many patients and staff remaining outside the hospital building.

Meanwhile Sulaiman said during the incident 294

patients and 193 hospital staff were reported to be in the same building.

The four female patients and two male patients who died were among the seven patients in the ICU while a male patient was saved from the fire.

He said other patients had been evacuated temporarily to wards in other buildings.

Meanwhile Health director-general Datuk Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said the affected

patients were being sent to another hospital near Johor Bahru, especially the Sultan Ismail Hospital.

The latest information and status on the incident would be notified from time to time, he said in a statement.

He urged the people not to speculate and spread inaccurate information about the incident. — Bernama </s> JOHOR BAHRU: The fire that claimed the lives of six people at the Sultanah Aminah Hospital (HSA) yesterday was believed to have started from its treatment room in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) before spreading to the entire ward.

Health Minister Datuk Seri Dr S Subramaniam said it was also believed that the blaze was not easy to put out and was spreading too fast due to the presence breathing apparatus which contained oxygen gas that had been used by patients in the ICU.

“Efforts to save all patients were made. Since the fire spread too fast, some staff who were on duty suffered from difficulty in breathing and some fainted due to thick smoke,” he told a press conference here yesterday.

Dr Subramaniam said the ministry would wait for a full report from the Fire and Rescue Department before taking further action.

Meanwhile, in a statement earlier, he said the ministry would get to the bottom of the tragedy by appointing a special committee comprising the relavant agencies and team of experts.

“We’ve been informed that the rapid spread of the fire and huge columns of smoke had hindered the rescue efforts,” Dr Subramaniam said.

The six people who perished in the fire that broke out just before 9am yesterday were all ICU patients. The seventh patient was rescued.

At the press conference, Dr Subramaniam said that he hoped that the victims’ families and their next-of-kin would remain strong despite the tragedy.

At the same time, he had instructed the hospital’s staff to render any kind of assistance needed by the families of the victims.

“As an institution that provides healthcare to patients, we’re certainly very saddened by this incident. We’re asking the public not to speculate about the cause of the fire,” he said.

Asked whether safety checks had been carried out at the hospital, Dr Subramaniam said it had always been conducted and in fact, the ministry itself has a dedicated team to monitor such matters.

Dr Subramaniam thanked the fire and rescue crews for preventing the blaze from spreading to other parts of the building, and HSA staff for evacuating 467 patients to safety.

Health director-general Datuk Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah, in a Facebook posting, said a detailed briefing on the fire was provided by HSA staff as well as fire and police officials during a visit by the minister, Health secretary-general Datuk Seri Dr Chen Chaw Min and himself to the hospital.

“The fire started at the treatment room in the ICU before it became uncontrolled and spread to the rest of the ICU,” he said.

He said the water sprinklers were triggered and hospital staff tried to control the fire with available fire extinguishers before the Fire and Rescue teams arrived to control the situation.

“Their efforts managed to contain the blaze at this floor from spreading,” he said. — Bernama </s> BANDUNG: Malaysia’s Johor government expressed condolences to the families of the hospital patients killed in a fire today in Johor Bahru and promised them aid.

Johor Health and Environment Committee chairman Datuk Ayub Rahmat, who is attending a meeting here, said the authorities were shocked by the incident.

Initial reports indicated that six critically ill patients died in the fire which started at about 9am at a second-floor intensive care unit of the Sultanah Aminah Hospital in Johor Bahru.

“We (the Johor government) will provide the appropriate aid soon to the next-of-kin of those who died,” Ayub told reporters here.

He is attending the International Conference on Low Carbon Asia Research Network.

Ayub said the authorities welcomed assistance from private hospitals to temporarily house those patients who would have to be moved out immediately. – Bernama </s> KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) — A fire at a Malaysian government hospital killed six patients and injured another patient and 10 hospital staff early Tuesday, officials said.

Some 500 people were evacuated from the hospital in southern Johor state after the fire raged through two floors of a building that houses the intensive care unit. Temporary tents were being used as treatment areas for patients after the evacuation.

Health Minister S. Subramaniam said six patients were trapped and died. Another patient was rescued but suffered severe burns while 10 hospital workers were injured, he said in a statement.

Johor police official Sulaiman Salleh said the bodies of four women and two men have been recovered from the hospital.

He told local media that the victims were believed to have suffocated in the thick smoke. Sulaiman said an initial investigation showed that faulty wiring may have caused the fire.

Officials said 10 fire engines were deployed to the scene and managed to stop the fire from spreading to other floors of the building. </s> Four staff members of a private medical hospital here where a massive fire broke out killing over 20 people were suspended on Tuesday even as over 100 patients, mostly from the gutted Intensive Care Unit(ICU) and dialysis unit, were shifted to other hospitals.

While 20 deaths were officially confirmed, the authorities of different hospitals where the injured were shifted last night put the death toll at 22.

As many as 106 patients, who were shifted from Sum Hospital following the blaze on Monday night, are now undergoing treatment at different hospitals in the city, Health Secretary Arti Ahuja said, amid reports that some of them are in critical condition. Most of them were from the ICU and the dialysis unit, an official said.

Mr. Ahuja, who visited the hospital, said that 14 and five bodies were received at the Capital Hospital and AMRI Hospital here respectively, while a spokesman of AIIMS-Bhubaneswar said that one death was reported at their facility.

Most of the deaths in the four-storey hospital took place due to suffocation and asphyxiation, a senior official said, adding that majority of the patients at the ICU were on ventilator support.

The authorities of the Siksha ‘O’ Anusandhan University (SOU), which runs the Institute of Medical Sciences and Sum Hospital, suspended four of its staff members and announced an ex-gratia of Rs 5 lakh each to the victims’ familes.

Those suspended were a fire officer, two engineers and one hospital manager, SOU vice-chancellor Amit Banerjee told reporters here, rejecting allegations that there was any irregularity in the management of the hospital.

“We have suspended four officials as part of the hospital’s bid to maintain transparency. Tomorrow no one should accuse that evidence was tampered with.”

Mr. Ahuja said the ICU and dialysis unit of the hospital have been sealed to ensure a proper investigation.

The blaze was suspected to have been triggered by an electric short circuit in the dialysis ward on the first floor and it spread to the nearby ICU.

The fire rapidly spread to other areas on the same floor.

Some patients have also been shifted to the SCB Medical College and Hospital at Cuttack.

Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik visited some of the hospitals, including AIIMS and AMRI Hospital, to inquire about the condition of the patients undergoing treatment.

Health Minister Atanu Sabyasachi Nayak said the priority was to provide ‘proper’ treatment to the patients who have been shifted from the fire-hit hospital.

The government had ordered a probe by the Director, Medical Education and Training, into the incident. In addition, a probe by a revenue divisional commissioner had also been ordered, an official said.

Rejecting allegation that the high casualty was due to wrong evacuation process, Mr. Banerjee said, “We have followed the best of the evacuation protocol. Had we not followed it, the casualty would have been more.”

Mr. Banerjee claimed that the fire safety parameters were checked only three weeks ago and there was no lacuna on the part of the hospital authorities in the maintenance of the electrical equipment.

“There were nine to 10 people under ventilator support,” he said, adding that most of the people died due to asphyxia. </s> New Delhi — Three staff at an Indian hospital have been suspended after a deadly blaze in the intensive care unit, authorities said yesterday, as the toll from the disaster rose to 22.

Fire broke out on Monday night in the dialysis ward of the hospital in eastern Odisha state before quickly spreading to other floors, killing 19 seriously ill patients who were unable to flee the blaze.

Another patient died in hospital yesterday after being rescued from the burning building, said police inspector Sharat Kumar Sahu.

“The toll is now 22 as one more person has succumbed to his injuries,” he told AFP.

“We can also confirm that three mid-level hospital staff have been suspended prima facie (for) negligence.”

About 40 critically ill patients were in the ICU of the SUM hospital in state capital Bhubaneswar when the fire broke out.

In all more than 100 were rescued by firefighters who smashed windows to get them out of the burning building.

“Some patients were evacuated by breaking a window on the first floor and then they were lowered to the ground floor. And some of them were evacuated through the adjoining operation theatre which was empty at that time,” said Odisha’s health secretary Arti Ahuja.

“There are about 106 people who are (now) in different private and government hospitals,” she told the NDTV news channel.

In a separate incident, two people died early yesterday morning when a high-rise luxury apartment block in the western city of Mumbai caught fire.

Firefighters said 11 people had to be rescued from the blaze and two died of asphyxiation after they became trapped in the stairwell. The cause of the fire was not immediately clear.

Such disasters are relatively common in India, partly because of poor safety standards.

In 2011 more than 90 patients were killed in the eastern city of Kolkata when a fire raged through a private hospital, trapping many people inside the building.

Ahuja said the hospital in Odisha had been sealed off and a detailed inquiry would be carried out to establish the cause of the disaster.

Local television stations showed images of firefighters wearing masks smashing glass panes to enter the building.

Police inspector Sahu said more than 100 firefighters had battled the blaze for around five hours until it was brought under control.

Most of the critical patients were on ventilators and died in the blaze, he said.

The state’s chief minister Naveen Patnaik said yesterday that he had visited the evacuated patients in hospital and ordered an inquiry into what he called a “tragic incident”.

A government relief fund would bear the cost of their treatment, he said on Twitter. — Aljazeera.
A fire breaks out in the ICU ward and Maternity ward of Hospital Sultanah Aminah, Johor, Malaysia, killing six patients and injured two others. All of the patients killed were dependent on ventilators in the ICU ward.