Dozens perish in Russian hospital fire

RAMENSKY, Russia: Thirty-eight people were killed, most of them in their beds, in a fire that raged through a psychiatric hospital near Moscow yesterday, raising questions about the care of mentally ill patients in Russia.
The fire, which broke out at around 2 a.m. (2200 GMT on Thursday), swept through a single-story building at the hospital, a collection of wood and brick huts with bars on some windows that was home to people sectioned by Russian courts.
By mid-morning, a few blackened walls were left standing. The roof had caved in on top of the twisted metal of what were once beds. Bodies lay on nearby grass, covered with blankets.
Only three people escaped from the fire in the village of Ramensky, 120 km (70 miles) north of Moscow, prompting speculation the patients were heavily sedated or strapped down.
Irina Gumennaya, aide to the head of the chief investigative department of the Moscow region, dismissed suggestions they had been restrained as “rubbish” but promised blood tests to check whether there were high levels of sedatives.
“The wards ... did not have doors, the sick could have escaped from the building by themselves,” she said, adding that she believed the most likely cause of the blaze was patients smoking, or perhaps a short circuit.
President Vladimir Putin called for an investigation of the “tragedy,” the latest in a long line of disasters at state institutions that are often ill-funded. Russia’s safety record is dismal, accounting for a high death toll on roads, railways and in the air as well as at the workplace.
Psychiatrists said the fire was not the first and would not be the last of its kind.
Putin’s critics blamed the state for neglecting its most vulnerable people.
Officials said the blaze consumed the building quickly and firefighters had no chance to save any more people — an account that locals disputed, saying fire engines took more than an hour to reach the scene.
“Don’t trust anyone who says they (firemen) arrived quickly ... My wife woke me up, we went out on the street with our daughter. Flames were rising high,” said a man, who was drinking an early-morning beer at a friend’s garage nearby.