The Health Ministry has deployed a team to the National Psychiatric Hospital to investigate what led to a fire last Saturday.
According to the Health Minister, Dr. Frank Anthony, the team is expected to be on location today. “[The] investigation team would look at what took place…What went wrong and why this happened. And so, we should have that report, and based on the recommendations of the report, we’ll take additional steps,” the Minister said.
Dr. Anthony said that meanwhile, steps are being taken to ensure the safety of patients displaced by the blaze.
“We are taking some measures on how we can deal with this in the future, but as of now, we have to take immediate steps to make sure that the patients are housed properly. So, the night when the incident occurred, we had to remove the patients to safety. Some of those patients were initially transferred to the New Amsterdam Hospital because a number of them would have incurred burn injuries and we were able to hospitalize them there. We subsequently made other arrangements to ensure that they are kept safely and those arrangements, we hope, will be temporary arrangements,” he noted.
He added that a team visited the institution yesterday to conduct an assessment of the damage, with a view of commencing rehabilitation works within the shortest possible time.
Police say that the fire occurred sometime around 19:30hrs last Saturday when a fight broke out between three of the 31 male inmates housed in the Chalet 4 Male Admission Ward.
As a result, the matron along with the supervisor and two male nurses went to the Chalet 4 Male Admission Ward where on arrival, they saw smoke coming from inside of the ward and heard patients shouting for help.
As a result, the Fire Service and Police were summoned. Firefighters managed to extinguish the fire, however, in the process, patients broke out from a southern door. Guyana Standard understands that nine patients escaped. Three were subsequently recaptured, while four returned willingly. Eleven of the patients who received burns about their bodies were rushed to the New Amsterdam Hospital where they were admitted and are in stable condition. Eight of the remaining patients are housed in the Acute Centre, while three are housed in Chalet One.
No fatalities were recorded.
