Nigerian university hospital confirms fire incident, says situation under control

The management of the University College Hospital (UCH), Ibadan, confirmed the fire outbreak in the hospital’s Intensive Care Unit (ICU) on Saturday.

A statement on the hospital’s official Facebook page signed by its Public Relations Officer, Funmi Adetuyibi, however, noted that the cause of the incident was yet to be ascertained.

The hospital said no casualty was recorded and that all patients and staff were successfully evacuated.

The management also did not give the details of the damage caused by the fire incident, but PREMIUM TIMES is aware that an asthmatic worker in the facility suffered an attack as a result of the fume and was rushed to the emergency unit for urgent medical attention.

Officials at the hospital told this newspaper that the occupants of the facility had been perceiving the foul smell of a burning wire for more than 48 hours before the incident.

A medical doctor in the hospital who does not want to be named said “Before the incident, we had been perceiving smell of wire burning somewhere. We even put off appliances but it was hard to pinpoint.”

How it happened

The medical officer said the fire probably started from the main theatre complex beside the ICU but that the patients were immediately evacuated via the emergency exit.

“From the ICU outside, you could see the heavy fumes, while most of us who wanted to check our patients couldn’t enter immediately, some people entered using wet blankets covering their heads and faces and others were masked,” the source said.

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“We were trying to check if the patients we were managing at the ICU were still there, we later got information that they were already rescued by firefighters and taken to the High Dependency Unit (HDU).”

University to investigate

Meanwhile, the university said, “Adequate arrangements have been made to ensure that services were not disrupted both at the ICU and the hospital in general.”

The university said it will investigate the cause of the fire to avert future occurrences, adding that a purpose-built fire station for the hospital is also currently under construction.

A student union leader at the hospital who asked not to be named as he is not authorised to speak said the health professionals and firefighters were proactive to move the patients to a safe space.

“They started distributing facemasks to people immediately to ensure that no one is affected by the smoke,” he said.

“I don’t have the full details, but I think the response to the fire incident is quite commendable, especially from the part of students who ran to the scene with fire extinguishers.”