RIYADH, 16 October 2005 — About 60 patients at King Khaled University Hospital’s intensive care unit were evacuated on Friday to nearby public hospitals after it was hit by a fire, Health Minister Dr. Hamad Al-Manie said.

“The condition of all transferred patients is stable,” the minister told reporters. He said the patients were taken to the hospitals of the Health Ministry, the National Guard, armed forces and security forces.

Dr. Musaed Al-Salman, dean of the College of Medicine at King Saud University and supervisor of university hospitals, said the fire brigade was able to put out the fire, caused by an explosion of oxygen cylinders, within half an hour.

“We supplied an adequate number of oxygen cylinders to the intensive care unit soon after the incident,” Salman said. The patients were shifted from the ICU to other hospitals following the breakdown of the medical gas system.

Salman said all surgical operations at the hospital would be halted for the next 24 hours. “We’ll not accept any patients coming through ambulance service,” he said, adding that outpatient clinics would also be closed until the situation is brought back to normal.

According to an informed hospital source, the fire broke out in the wake of an explosion of the main pipeline supplying oxygen to the hospital’s various clinics. Nobody was either killed or injured as a result of the fire, he claimed. However, a 15-year-old Saudi girl, a heart patient, was reported to have died during the evacuation.

The civil defense department has launched a probe to determine the reason for the fire, which occurred at 3 p.m. on Friday. The initial investigation found that the fire was caused by an electricity short-circuit, but there was no official confirmation.

After inaugurating a computer system for primary health care centers in Riyadh yesterday, Al-Manie said his ministry would soon establish 420 new heath centers in various parts of the Kingdom. “Some 150 health centers are almost ready as part of a major project to set up 2,000 centers within five years,” he told reporters.

He said about 80 percent of the health centers would be linked with public hospitals under the new computer system.