Patients were evacuated after a fire broke out at Barishal Sher-e-Bangla Medical College Hospital鈥檚 medicine building warehouse on Sunday morning.
After nearly three hours efforts of nine units of the Fire Service and Civil Defence, the fire at the hospital, the largest health facility in Barishal, was brought under control.
Panic-stricken patients were seen rushing out of the hospital. Many were seen carrying saline and oxygen cylinders with them.
Fire Service and Civil Defence Barishal division deputy director Mohammad Mizanur Rahman said that they rushed to the hospital after knowing about the incident at about 9:00am.
Smoke spread everywhere inside the hospital due to the fire and the聽 situation was brought under control after nearly a three-hour effort of 65 members from nine units of the fire service, said Mizanur.
Visiting the hospital, divisional health director Shyamal Krishna Mandal said that they had no information about any casualty in the fire.
It will take at least three days to reopen the facility and rehabilitate patients in the wards in the fire-ravaged five-storey medicine building of the SBMCH, Shyamal said, adding that mattresses, mosquito nets and other goods in the store along with furniture were burnt and it would take time to assess the full damage.
Assistant director of the hospital Mohammad Mahmud said that the patients were rescued and brought to different places, including the ear-nose-throat unit in the old building.
According to the administrative wing of the hospital, the five-storey building has 10 units, including five wards of the medicine department and a dengue ward.
There were 543 patients in the building, including 70 dengue patients.
A six-member investigation committee led by the hospital鈥檚 medicine department head professor Imrul Kayes has been formed.
The committee has been asked to submit its report in the next three working days, said SBMCH assistant director Rezyanul Alam.
After visiting the new and old buildings of the hospital, it was seen that the fire fighting system of the hospital was fragile.
There are currently about 2,000 patients admitted to the hospital and hundreds of patients take treatment every day in the outdoor department of the hospital.
In addition to the relatives of admitted patients, thousands of doctors, nurses and staff members perform their duties daily.
Earlier, a fire broke out in the kidney dialysis section of the hospital on June 4.