JAKARTA - A fire engulfed the ICU room at a COVID-19 referral hospital in Romania, killing nine people on Friday, October 1. It was the third deadly fire at a hospital in less than a year.
Firefighters managed to extinguish the blaze at the hospital in the city of Constanta at around 0755 GMT, after engaging additional officers from nearby areas.
Video footage showed patients jumping from downstairs hospital windows and officers evacuating people.
Health Minister Cseke Attila said 113 patients were at the hospital when the fire broke out. Including 10 patients in the ICU.
The emergency response team then selects the priority of the patients to be treated according to their level of emergency. So far, 50 patients have been evacuated and transferred to other hospitals.
More than 12,100 COVID-19 patients, including 315 children, were admitted to Romanian hospitals as of Thursday. That figure includes 1,364 ICU patients.
In February, four patients died in a fire at a COVID treatment hospital in the nation's capital, Bucharest. In addition, in November last year, 10 people in the ICU room of the Piatra Neamt region hospital also died.
The number of new COVID-19 infections in Romania reached 12,032 on Thursday and ICU rooms across the country were full. Romania is one of the European Union countries with an underdeveloped healthcare infrastructure.
Even before the pandemic emerged, the country's healthcare system was already under stress due to corruption, waste and politicized management.
Among the 27 EU countries, Romania has the second lowest vaccination rate.
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