Probe launched into Psychiatric Hospital fire – Health Minister

Days after a fire at the National Psychiatric Hospital in New Amsterdam, Region Six (East Berbice-Corentyne), patients have been secured and an investigation is in full swing to determine the course of action.
Health Minister, Dr Frank Anthony said on Monday that an investigative team was sent to conduct a full probe into what transpired. From the recommendation, authorities will decide on the next step.
“We’re also going to have a number of people go up as part of an investigation team to have a look at what took place and that team is supposed to be there today (Monday). They would conduct an investigation as to what went wrong and why this happened. We should be able to have that report and based on the recommendations in that report, we’ll take additional steps,” the Minister said.
He informed that immediate measures are to house patients properly as well as contingency plans to prevent a recurrence. Several persons that were housed at the Fort Canje facility are still nursing burn injuries.
“It’s unfortunate that we had the fire. But we had some aggressive psychiatric patients at the Fort Canje Hospital. We are taking some measures on how we can deal with this in the future. As of now we have to take immediate steps to ensure that the patients are housed properly. The night when the incident occurred, we had to remove the patients to safety. Some of the patients were initially transferred to the New Amsterdam Hospital because a number of them would have incurred burn injuries,” Dr Anthony underscored.
Following an assessment of the damages, works will commence to rebuild the facility and relocate displaced patients.
“Those arrangements, we hope will be temporary arrangements. Yesterday (Sunday), a team went down to Fort Canje. We were able to do an assessment of the damages done to the building and hopefully, we’ll be able to start the repairs of that building so that persons can go back at the hospital there. As of now, we have been able to safely house the patients that have been displaced because of the fire.”

Reports are that the fire was started on Saturday evening by inmates who were displaying signs of violence and aggression.
This publication had reported that some 32 patients were housed in the admission ward and there was only one nurse attached to the ward at the time of the incident. The Police and the Guyana Fire Service arrived in a timely manner and the firefighters were able to extinguish the small blaze without having to enter the building.
However, a second fire was started, again by the inmates, which caused some of the patients to suffer from smoke inhalation. According to the official, the second fire was set in the ceiling of the building. She related that some of the patients succeeded in ripping out the door made of iron bars and escaped.
This resulted in a mass exodus of patients trying to make their way out of the compound of the NPH.
All escaped patients accounted for. (G12)