Matanzas fire: 85 injured people released from hospital

MATANZAS, Cuba, Aug 7 (ACN) Luis Wong Corrales, provincial director of Health in Matanzas province, informed at a press conference that 85 patients affected by last Friday's fire in this city have been discharged from the hospital, out of the 121 treated so far.

The doctor told the national and foreign media that 36 people are currently hospitalized in institutions in this western territory and Havana, five in critical condition, three in serious condition and 28 in care.

Wong Corrales explained that in the provincial hospital Comandante Faustino Pérez, in this city, there are six patients, one of them in an unstable critical condition, and the rest are reported in care, while in the local military hospital Mario Muñoz Monroy 21 patients are being treated, all of them in care.

At the Hermanos Ameijeiras hospital in Havana, there is one critical and one serious patient, at the Calixto García hospital there are three, all critical and stable, at the Miguel Enríquez hospital there are two serious patients, and at the Luis Díaz Soto hospital there are two persons reported to be in a critical condition.

Among the injured are firefighters, civilian workers of the Revolutionary Armed Forces (FAR) and the Ministry of the Interior (Minint) as well as journalists from the local TV station.

According to the official, a corpse was recovered at the place of the accident, which was taken to the provincial Legal Medicine service, and is in the process of identification by the professionals of that center and of the Ministry of the Interior (Minint).

He acknowledged the numerous expressions of solidarity received from all over the country, and thanked for the offers to send help despite the fact that Matanzas has at this moment the necessary material and human resources.

He appreciated the quick response of the citizens to donate blood in a massive way, also on the part of employees of the private sector who even put at the disposal of the province their private means of transport.

The health workers of this capital city and other municipalities went to the Faustino Pérez Hospital voluntarily and are still active, said Wong Corrales.

He clarified that no patients affected by smoke inhalation, or events of exacerbation of bronchial asthma or allergy have been received in the on-call corps; the column of smoke generated by the burned tanks is at high levels in the atmosphere and does not represent so far a risk for the population.