Second Recent Fire in Romania’s COVID-19 Hospitals Kills Five

At least five people died on Friday in the Matei Bals hospital for infectious diseases in Bucharest, one of the largest medical centres treating COVID-19 patients in Romania.

Over a hundred patients suffering from COVID-19, some of whom were connected to oxygen, were evacuated as a consequence, the Romanian news portal G4Media reported.

A team of prosecutors was on the scene on Friday, investigating the causes. The prime hypothesis is that a problem with an electric device started the blaze, which firefighters extinguished.

The Minister of the Interior's Emergencies Department said those evacuated had "been relocated to other hospital units". Authorities have set up two telephone lines where relatives of the affected patients can find out which hospitals their loved ones have been sent to.

The fire at the Matei Bals hospital is the second fire to break out in a Romanian COVID-19 hospital in the past three months.

On 14 November, 2020, a short circuit caused a fire at the ICU of the Piatra Neamts provincial hospital, in northeast Romania.

Ten COVID-19 patients died as a result. A doctor survived after being treated in Belgium for life-threatening burns.

During the investigation whose results were released in December last year, authorities identified nearly 2,000 deficiencies in the fire security systems of ICU units, which are currently treating almost a thousand COVID-19 patients.

Romania was shocked by a blaze at a Bucharest nightclub on 30 October, 2015 that killed 65 club-goers and left dozens with life-long scars. Some of the victims died after being sent to hospitals where they were infected with germs. The crisis revealed major problems in the health system that led to mass protests and the fall of...