Quick actions help Ottawa Hospital avoid injuries following dramatic fire Friday

Published Oct 28, 2023 • Last updated 24 minutes ago • 3 minute read

The Ottawa Hospital’s president and CEO, Cameron Love provides details on a transformer fire that at the General Campus Friday. Photo by Ashley Fraser /POSTMEDIA

A series of quick emergency measures, including transporting patients to other locations within the city, allowed the Ottawa Hospital to dodge a potential disaster after a fire broke out at the General Campus Friday afternoon.

Power was temporarily knocked out and generators kicked in. Normal power was restored early Saturday morning.

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Ottawa Hospital president and CEO Cameron Love credited the work of first responders such as the city’s police and fire departments for their actions.

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“Our regional partners have been absolutely incredible throughout this process,” Love said at a news conference late Saturday morning.

“We would not have been able to manage through this without their support.”

A transformer on the third floor caught fire at 3:50 p.m. Friday, prompting the “emergency operations centre” — a standard hospital procedure to assess risk damage and plot immediate future steps — to go to work.

The fire was put out quickly, according to Love, but the issue then became the damage from water and the potential for smoke inhalation rising up to floors four through eight.

A “Code Orange” was declared, allowing the hospital to divert patients in general emergency departments to other locations in the city — to the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario next door, to the hospital’s Civic Campus and to the Queensway-Carleton and Montfort Hospitals.

There were no initial reports of patients or staff suffering from smoke inhalation or other injuries, but the Code Orange will remain in effect for several days, “while teams work to restore normal operations,” according to Love.

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“Patients in the west wing of the main building were relocated to the east end,” he said. “At this point, 96 of those patients have been relocated within the hospital.”

The Ottawa Hospital’s president and CEO, Cameron Love, provides details on a transformer fire at the General Campus Friday. There were no injuries in the event. Photo by Ashley Fraser /POSTMEDIA

The eighth-floor of the hospital houses the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, home to babies that are sick at birth and on ventilators and are especially vulnerable to smoke damage.

The 16 babies in NICO were immediately transferred to CHEO.

“Some of them were carried by firefighters,” said Lowe.

One woman was in labour as the fire broke out and, fortunately, she and her child are healthy.

Expectant mothers were transferred to other hospitals.

But mothers who had recently delivered babies stayed in the General campus because the east side of the eighth floor is deemed safe from any potential smoke damage.

During weekends, emergency surgeries are conducted at the hospital’s Civic Campus only, but Lowe says there could be some necessary re-scheduling for elective surgeries next week.

“We will wait to see how we place patients throughout the campuses,” he said.

For the time being, family and friends are not allowed to visit patients. The hospital’s family reunification centre includes social workers, who are explaining the situation to any visitors and helping to support the patients who remain inside.

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As infection teams pore over the damage in the upper floors, some patients may be temporarily moved.

Lowe also says the General is taking a “very conservative approach” with any medication that might have been in the line of the smoke and or water damage.

“In units where we had a lot of smoke, infection teams are going through them now,” said Lowe. “Any supplies that may have debris on it, we will probably take precautionary measures and just get rid of it.”

The pharmacy is on the main level of the hospital, away from the smoke damage.

When asked to elaborate on what caused the fire to break out, Love says maintenance work is constantly being performed to the hospital’s infrastructure and they were in the midst of doing a replacement of a large transformer. Typically, other transformers serve as a backup during that process, but it was the original transformer that caught fire.

The layout of the hospital also helped prevent further damage.

“In most hospitals, particularly new ones that are built, your major electrical structures, your generators, your air handlers, all your major building infrastructure is in the centre of the building, feeding up and down,” said Love. “We never put patients in that location.”

The hospital will provide further updates throughout the weekend.

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Emergency workers continue to gather at the front of the hospital Friday night. Photo by Tony Caldwell /POSTMEDIA First responders were praised for their work at the fire at the General campus. Hospital president Cameron Love noted that firefighters carried several babies to safety. There were no injuries. Photo by Tony Caldwell /POSTMEDIA