Victims of Bucharest nightclub fire still in hospital
The Romanian authorities are making efforts to save or cure the patients injured in the fire at the Colectiv nightclub in Bucharest.
Roxana Vasile, 10.11.2015, 13:49
The death toll in the wake of the fire at the Colectiv rock nightclub in Bucharest in late October rises by the day. The number of injured patients in the Bucharest hospitals has gone down to around 70, 20 of whom being in a critical and serious condition. A total of 30 burnt people have been flown to clinics in Israel, Belgium, Austria, Holland, Great Britain and Norway, by a NATO aircraft included. The manager of the University Hospital, Catalin Carstoiu explained that the hospital he ran could not provide treatment after the patients had overcome the acute phase and the decision on the patients’ transfer had been correct.
Catalin Carstoiu: “We can’t treat these patients during the post-acute phase, which is now beginning. That is why, I think the decision on their transfer was quite correct and was made when those patients could be moved from one place to another. Just think that the transfer of such patients from a ward to an operating theatre and back to the ward can trigger complications.”
Physicians from Germany and France are now in Bucharest evaluating the condition of injured patients in the Bucharest hospitals to decide on their possible transfer to hospitals in Europe. Romanian-born doctor Ciprian Isacu, head of the Hand Unit of the Plastic Surgery Department of the Hospital University Centre in Bordeaux, France said that the medical staff in Romania had taken an exact and correct action. In his view, doctors in France, Belgium or Great Britain could not have taken a better action.
Ciprian Isacu: “To my surprise, not only can’t we teach any lessons, but I also wonder what we would have done to cope with such a big disaster in our center in the south-west of France, maybe the biggest in France. The Romanian doctors did quality work, you can’t imagine it. From a technical point of view, Romanian physicians are very good; from a humane point of view, one can’t blame them. Burn injuries are extremely complex, the pathology in this case is maybe the most difficult and expensive one. One day of resuscitation abroad amounts to over 8,500 Euros. So, action has been taken quite as it should be.”
According to the tests run by the National Coroner’s Institute in Bucharest, toxic doses of carbon monoxide and hydrogen cyanide have been found in the blood of all the people who died on the very evening of the tragedy at the Colectiv nightclub. The victims with respiratory, cardiovascular and kidney failure had levels of hydrogen cyanide above lethal limits. Since the toxic effects of those substances can occur even later and not right away, the people who escaped safe and sound from the fire have been advised to have a medical check up.
