JEDDAH: Taif Civil defense teams evacuated 85 patients from King Faisal Medical Complex early Sunday after a fire broke out.
Civil Defense did not disclose the cause of the fire. However, sources said that a mental health patient in the patient room where the fire began is suspected of having set the blaze. The patient was the only person present in the room at the time.
The patient was originally transferred from Prince Mansour Military Hospital after suffering a blood clot in the brain, according to sources.
Col. Nasser bin Sultan Al-Sharif, spokesman of the General Directorate of the Civil Defense in Taif, said the incident resulted in the injury of one patient with minor burns to his right leg, while a security guard and nursing technician suffered smoke inhalation. The three individuals were reported in stable condition, he said.
Al-Sharif said an investigation remains ongoing to identify the cause of the blaze. He said that the Civil Defense operation room had received a report about smoke coming out of the medical building. Teams were immediately dispatched to the site where they discovered that a fire had broken out in a 4-foot-by-4-foot inpatient room on the second floor in the Internal Medicine Department. The smoke spread to the entire department.
The patients were evacuated and transferred to other departments not affected by the fire, he said.
Abdulhadi Al-Rubaie, spokesman for the Taif Health Affairs Directorate, said the directorate prepared 20 ambulatory teams. He said it was not necessary to transfer patients outside the hospital.