8 dead in fire at Falklands hospital

Press, 12 April 1984, Page 10

8 dead in fire at Falklands hospital

NZPA-PA Port Stanley

A new-born baby and a nurse who refused to leave her patients were among eight people who died when fire wrecked the Falkland Islands’ only hospital yesterday.

The scale of the tragedy outweighed the islanders’ personal loss in the 1982 conflict with Argentina, when three residents were killed. Seven of those who died in the fire were islanders being treated in Port Stanley’s 50-bed wooden hospital. They included a mother, Theresa McGill aged 26, and her baby daughter, Karen, just two weeks old.

The eighth victim was a nurse, Barbara Chick, aged 36, who had migrated from Britain last year. She ignored orders to keep out of the burning building and stayed with her patients until she was overcome by smoke.

The cause of the fire is a mystery. The British Government has promised an inquiry into the blaze, which broke out at 5 a.m. and destroyed two-thirds of the building the military wing used by British troops.

A Conservative member of Parliament, Mr Robert Key said in the House of Commons that a report condemning fire safety at the hospital had been made more than a year ago.

Patients who had not been injured in the fire, 14 servicemen and nine civilians, were moved to a makeshift ward in the Town Hall.

Hundreds of wounded military personal were treated at the hospital during the Falklands campaign.

Two hundred British troops yesterday helped civil authorities to fight the fire, which took three hours to control.

Thousands of pounds worth of medical equipment was destroyed in the blaze. Much of it had recently been shipped in to the hospital to cater for the 4000 servicemen on the islands.