Management at Eugene Marais hospital in Pretoria yesterday expressed confidence that work to attend to patients went unhindered after a fire broke out on Thursday evening at the facility.
Speaking to the Pretoria News yesterday, hospital marketing manager Natasha van der Walt, indicated that it was business as usual at the centre following the blaze that broke out after the standby generator caught fire.
She said the incident didn’t occur as a result of negligence on the part of an employee, but that it was due to a generator that suddenly went up in flames during load shedding.
“No one was injured as a result of the incident,” she said.
The Tshwane Emergency Services Department reported that about 20 patients were safely evacuated from one of the wards after fire caused part of the ground floor of the hospital, which included the casualty, to be filled with smoke.
Emergency Services spokesperson Charles Mabaso said his department received the call at almost 6pm on November 23, 2023.
“Emergency Services arrived on the scene to find a generator on fire and immediately started with firefighting operations. The fire was subsequently extinguished and only the generator sustained fire damages,” he said.
He said hospital staff managed to safely evacuate 20 patients to an alternative ward.
“According to hospital management, 200 to 250 patients were not affected by the smoke. The hospital staff conducted a further assessment of the patients to determine if they were affected in any other way,,” he said.
Firefighters, Mabaso said, conducted positive pressure ventilation to clear the casualty and parts of the ground floor of excessive smoke.
“The incident occurred during the time when the area was experiencing a power outage. The cause of the fire is still under investigation,” he said.
Pretoria News