Narrow escape leaves patients of Sadguru hospital in Cuttack traumatised

CUTTACK: “I had taken my medicine and was lying down, taking rest, when I heard a commotion. Someone was saying ‘fire’,” said a 62-year-old Covid patient who was undergoing treatment at Sadguru Hospital in Jagatpur area of Cuttack.
“Somebody said there was smoke coming out from one side of the building and we all must go out into the open. I panicked and got down from the bed and into the corridor.There I saw other people trying to reach safety. We all walked down the stairs and came out of the building,” said the senior citizen on Monday. He was supposed to leave the hospital in two days’ time, the fire only hastened the departure.
A 43-year-old patient said around 12.30 he heard some paramedics rush into the ward and ask everybody to leave. “One said the building is on fire. Some of the paramedics helped me get down the stairs. It was frightening,” the patient said.
Sudheshna Das got a call from her sister about the fire. Her sister was undergoing treatment at Sadguru Hospital for Covid. “I rushed to the hospital and saw my sister taking rest in an under-construction building near the hospital. She was extremely tired. There was panic all round,” said Das, who said since her sister was a Covid patient, she couldn’t take her back home. “I requested the hospital authorities to shift her and she was moved to a Covid care centre,” she added.
Meanwhile, Sandip Rout sent out a tweet to chief minister Naveen Patnaik and and health minister Naba Kisore Das requesting help after his 58-year-old father, who had received plasma, was moved to a Covid care centre.
Rout said his father was admitted to Sadguru Hospital on September 11 after he tested positive. “His condition deteriorated and he was administered plasma therapy on Sunday. My father was in the intensive care unit. But instead of moving him to a similar facility, the hospital authorities shifted him to a Covid care centre in Tangi where there is no facility to handle critical patient.”
Dr Smita Mohanty, one of the owners of Sadguru Hospital, said “There was smoke in the ICU following an electric short circuit in the air-conditioner.”