Russian hospital fire kills coronavirus patients attached to ventilators

Russian authorities have launched a criminal investigation after two deadly fires in hospital wards treating coronavirus patients in a matter of days.

Five coronavirus patients attached to ventilators died in the early hours of Tuesday, after a fire broke out at the St George hospital in St Petersburg. More than 100 other patients on the same floor were moved to a different part of the building in time to save their lives.

Four of the casualties were in the ward where the fire broke out, while a fifth patient was in a neighbouring ward. “Investigators are working to establish the cause of death of the fifth patient,” the prosecutors’ office said in a statement.

Early reports suggested the fire was caused by an overheated ventilator.

“The ventilators were being pushed to their limits. Our preliminary information suggests there was an overload and the equipment caught fire, which set off the fire,” a source told Interfax news agency.

Russian agencies reported the ventilators had been manufactured recently by a factory in Russia, though there was no confirmation of this from the hospital.

The country’s investigative committee has launched a criminal investigation on charges of death by negligence, and an official probe into compliance with fire safety standards at the hospital is under way.

Everything is more or less calm now. We didn’t have to evacuate anyone to other hospitals,” the head doctor, Valery Strizheletsky, told a local television station.

The fire came just a few days after a separate incident at a Moscow hospital treating coronavirus patients, in which one person died. There were reports that a faulty ventilator was also the cause of that fire.

Russia has more than 220,000 coronavirus cases, and currently has the second highest rate of growth in the world after the US.

On Monday, Vladimir Putin announced an easing of the nationwide lockdown but said it would be up to local leaders whether to keep restrictions in place. Moscow, which accounts for more than half the national total of cases, has already said lockdown measures will be in place until at least the end of May.