A psychiatric patient reportedly set her bed alight in a ward in Charlotte Maxeke Hospital, creating a serious threat to the facility and other patients.
The woman, who has not been identified, was in a ward on the ninth floor. She was described by the Gauteng Department of Health as having been agitated and frustrated.
She set the fire after demanding to be discharged.
Charlotte Maxeke’s personnel extinguished the blaze with fire extinguishers before the fire could get out of hand. Firefighters were also sent to the scene.
There were no injuries. The other patients were relocated, and a clean-up operation is being carried out.
[Image: By Ekem – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=33416249]