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A three-day national mourning was declared after the fire, which allegedly began when an oxygen cylinder exploded.
At least 27 people have been killed and 46 injured in a fire at an intensive care coronavirus unit in Baghdad on Sunday as Iraq faces a growing wave of COVID-19 cases.
The fire at the Ibn Khatib hospital in the Iraqi capital caused an accident that exploded an oxygen tank, according to medical sources quoted by Reuters news agency and AFP.
The flames spread quickly, according to civil defense officials, “because the hospital did not have a fire-fighting system and the false ceilings allowed the flames to spread to highly flammable products.”
Major General Kadhim Bohanm, the head of Iraq’s civil defense unit, said a total of 120 patients and relatives had been rescued, the state-run INA news agency said.
He added that the fire had been extinguished.
Iraq’s health care system, already ravaged by decades of sanctions, wars and neglect, has been further extended as a result of the coronavirus crisis.
Al Jazeera’s Simona Moltyn, who is in Baghdad, said the death toll was likely to rise as many people were injured in severe burns.
The total number of people infected with COVID-19 in Iraq is 102,528, including 15,217 dead, the health ministry said on Saturday.
At the time of the fire, there were 30 patients and dozens of relatives in the intensive care unit – reserved for the most serious cases of COVID in the capital.
There is no central oxygen supply
Hospitals in Iraq do not usually have a central oxygen supply and patients who need them are usually given a cylinder to put to bed. Due to staff shortages, relatives sometimes have to change cylinders, a doctor told Al Jazeera.
“Most of the victims were killed because they had to be killed and the fans were removed, while the others were drowned in smoke,” the civil defense said.
He made no statement until a few hours after the fire, the Ministry of Health said it had “saved more than 200 patients” and then ordered an official toll on the dead and injured.
The fire caused outrage on social media and the prime minister called for an investigation into the cause of the fire.
“That’s not enough for Iraqis,” Foltyn said. “We often hear that the government promises investigations, but we rarely see the government being held accountable for the results or for what seems like neglect or mismanagement.
In a statement, the government’s human rights commission said the incident was “a crime against patients exhausted by COVID-19, who instead of putting and caring for life in the hands of the health ministry and its institutions, died in the fire.”
The fire is believed to have started when an oxygen tank exploded and spread rapidly, as the hospital “did not have a fire protection system”. [Thaier Al-Sudani/Reuters]
The commission has called on Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhemi to remove Health Minister Hassan al-Tamimi from office and “bring him to justice.” He tended to send a hashtag on Twitter asking for the removal of the health minister.
Kadhemik responded by calling for “an immediate investigation with ministry officials” and “sending the hospital director, head of security and maintenance team to the investigators and not to release those guilty until approached. Justice.”
He also claimed three days of national mourning.
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