Constanta Prefect Cosa: Responders arrived at fire scene within seven minutes of alert

Constanta County Prefect Silviu Cosa said on Friday that the first responders arrived at the Infectious Diseases Hospital within seven minutes of being alerted of a fire there, and the head of the Constanta Inspectorate for Emergency Situations (ISU) said that checks conducted in February at the same hospital revealed technical and organisational irregularities, agerpres reports.

"Within seven minutes of the alert, the first responders arrived. A code red emergency plan was activated, along with code white for the hospitals that were to take over the victims. The response involved over 50 emergency vehicles, over 125 non-commissioned and commissioned officers. Officers form both ISU Dobrogea and neighbouring counties - Galati, Calarasi, Ialomita responded (...) The other patients have already been distributed to the Military Hospital, the County Hospital and the Pulmonary Care Hospital. Other hospitals - CFR, Medgidia, Mangalia - are on standby," said the prefect.

In his turn, ISU Dobrogea Chief Inspector Mihail-Cristian Amarandei told journalists that in February an inspection was performed at all medical facilities, especially those that provided COVID-19 support, that revealed irregularities including at the Infectious Diseases Hospital in Constanta.

"Certain irregularities were also identified here, there were also technical and organisational issues," said the ISU chief, who did not give further details.

He admitted that no checks had been carried out since then, pointing out that the deadline for fixing the problems was the end of the year.

Constanta Infectious Diseases Hospital manager Stela Halichidis said on Friday that the facility had all the legal approvals, and all the irregularities previously detected by ISU had been remedied.

"All the irregularities were fixed, everything worked according to the law. There were the necessary approvals, everything worked, but trouble happened. We will see how. (...) All the documents are in order, all the detected irregularities were remedied. There was nothing wrong. (...) The network was checked, it was not oversized. There was nothing extra besides the medical equipment, which operates under a maintenance contract," said the hospital manager.