AMMAN (Reuters) – Jordan’s health minister was fired on Saturday after seven people died in an oxygen outage at a hospital treating coronavirus patients, and police were deployed to detain hundreds of angry relatives, they said. state press and witnesses.
Saturday’s oxygen failure hit the intensive care, maternity and coronavirus wards at the new Salt government hospital west of the capital, Amman.
Prime Minister Bisher al-Khaswaneh said he fired Health Minister Nathir Obeidat. In a public apology, he said his government bears full responsibility for the incident.
“This is a serious mistake that cannot be justified or accepted. I am ashamed of this and I will not justify it “, said Khaswaneh, adding that he is waiting for the results of a judicial investigation.
Obeidat said he was “morally responsible” for the deaths of patients who were being treated for COVID-19 when the wards ran out of oxygen for almost an hour.
King Abdullah visited the hospital in a move officials said they intend to defuse tensions. Anger with the authorities has caused civil unrest in Jordan in the past.
“How can a hospital like this see this happen?” he said at the entrance to the multimillion-dollar hospital, which only became operational in August last year.
Some politicians said the incident indicated major maladministration in government hospitals.
Jordan is facing an increase in COVID-19 infections mainly attributed to the rapid transmission of the first identified coronavirus variant in the UK and announced stricter measures to reduce the spread of COVID-19 last week.
Jordan reported 8,300 new cases of COVID-19 on Thursday, the highest daily death toll since the first pandemic hit the kingdom a year ago.
Jordan, with a population of about 10 million, recorded 385,533 cases of COVID-19 and 5,224 deaths.
Reporting by Suleiman Al-Khalidi, edited by Ros Russell, Alexandra Hudson and Timothy Heritage