BAHAWALPUR: The patients admitted to the Constant Care Unit of Bahawal Victoria Hospital (BVH) had to be evacuated late on Friday as the ward was filled with smoke after uninterrupted power supply system caught fire.

According to hospital Medical Superintendent (MS) Dr Muhammad Irshad no casualty occurred because of the incident.

According to hospital sources, the fire erupted at 10:30pm in the angiography section that was closed during the night hours, filling the BVH CCU ward with smoke, panicking the patients admitted there.

The panicked patients, the sources said, in their bid to avoid suffocation, tried to leave the ward on their own, causing a stampede-like situation.

They said Quaid-i-Azam Medical College (QAMC) Principal Prof Dr Khwaja Khurshead Pasha and BVH MS Dr Muhammad Irshad rushed to the ward and immediately called the emergency service Rescue 1122 officials who evacuated the ward shifting patients to nearby emergency ward.

Dr Irshad told Dawn that the batteries of the UPS caught fire due to overcharging and overheating.

He said all the CCU patients were immediately shifted to emergency ward that took the rescuers two hours.

He claimed that all patients in the ward were safe and no casualty was reported.

The MS said after the smoke subsided, all the CCU patients were again shifted to their beds. He said the machinery and furniture in the angiography section of the CCU ward remained safe.

However, he said, to avert any complication technicians had been called to thoroughly inspect the angiography machines before restarting them. He said the technicians would check the machines on Monday.

Published in Dawn, May 24th, 2015

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