Russian doctors complete complicated heart surgery while hospital was on fire

A medical team at a burning Russian hospital successfully completed an open-heart surgery on a patient while firefighters battled to contain the blaze engulfing the building’s roof. According to ABC News, despite the fire and the loss of electrical power, a group of eight doctors and nurses continued to conduct the complicated heart-by-pass surgery at the Amur State Medical Academy’s cardiology centre in Blagoveshchensk. More than 120 people were evacuated, however, the healthcare workers continued thanks to an emergency electricity cable run into the ground-floor operating theatre as fans kept the smoke out. 

The firefighters took more than two hours to put out the blaze and the doctors successfully completed the operation, which started just before the fire broke out, in two hours. Surgeon Valentin Filatov said that there is nothing else the doctors could do. Filatov added, “We had to save the person”. 

Regional governor praises medical team, firefighters  

The Russian emergencies ministry informed that the clinic was built more than a century ago, in 1907, and the fire spread like lightning through the wooden ceilings of the roof. The ministry said that no one was reported hurt and the heart surgery was completed successfully after which the patient was transferred to another regional hospital for further treatment. Medic Antonina Smolina said that "there was no panic" among the hospital staff.

Vasiliy Orlov, the local regional governor, praised the surgical team’s professionalism and firefighters for putting out the blaze. Orlov informed that they all are now in line for awards. Meanwhile, the cause of the fire is yet to determined. It is worth noting that Blagoveshchensk lies in the East of Russia near the country's border with China and the Amur State Medical Academy’s cardiology centre is the only hospital in the region with a specialist cardiological unit. 

(Rep. image: Unsplash)