Fire in maternity hospital.

[KnittyNell]

A huge fire has broken out in St Michael’s Maternity Hospital here in Bristol.
My son in law is currently in the Bristol Royal Infirmary which is adjacent to St Michael’s and can see it all unfolding.
I can’t imagine how awful it must be for women in labour or in theatre.
Horrible. 🙁

That really is incredible, it’s truly amazing what surgeons are able to do. Thankfully in this instance no one was hurt and they were able to evacuate everyone to safety.

Edit - I didn’t see your edit before I finished my post but that is incredibly sad and you’re absolutely right it’s not as rare as it should be.

To clarify some thing.

Paramedics DO NOT perform C Sections! On a very rare occasion they may perform a perimortem section on a clinically dead woman. This would be to attempt to save the life of the woman without a baby in her uterus and not to save the baby. It’s very rare and not something I imagine many would do!

My hospital is in fire sections with hours of time before fire would break through so women and babies would be moved into the further section away which would give time for the fire to be out out. However, oxygen would be turned off.

Theatres work similarly I believe and as a standard section does not require oxygen it could be done without if completely necessary.

Neonatal cuts have their own back up power supply as well as oxygen.

This thread is bonkers! Why has it turned into an argument? It must have been terrifying and stressful for everyone involved!

I see that it was solar panels that caught fire. There have been two solar panels fires near us recently. I wanted to get some but I feel v nervous about the idea of them now. I didn't realise this was such a risk

WTF paramedics do NOT do c-sections in peoples houses, this is absolutely insane

haven't read the link, but doing a section on a person in cardiac arrest is absolutely not the same as doing one in theatre. It's a perimortem section, so done after maternal cardiac arrest, where the standard is to have the baby out in 4mins from the onset of arrest, usually to facilitate the resuscitation of the woman (which will be much easier without the baby inside). The procedure is totally different to a section that a surgeon will do (even in a cat 1 scenario) in theatre. A perimortem section is something that a lot of HCPs will have done training for, but the very vast majority of us will fortunately never have to think about (and definitely all of us will be hoping that we never have to do it!).

Was it now! That is scary.

That’s terrible! Where on earth are the locals supposed to go? There’s no other hospital for miles around!

Of course they don't!!

This thread has just fully solidified my belief that people on mumsnet will force themselves to argue about absolutely anything.

‘There’s a fire at a maternity hospital, how terrible for the mothers and babies.’

’WhAt AbOuT aLl ThE oThEr PeOpLe In A dIfFeReNt HyPoThEtIcAl HoSpItAl???’

jfc

And this is why I love MN. Absolutely bonkers.

Yes and no, have you had a c section? My son's was a crash section, every moment counted, huge team required, stopping at the wrong moment he'd have died. My daughter was an emergency not a crash. Most surgeries aren't life or death and those that are mainly don't involve life or death for 2 people. I mean a heart surgery or neurosurgery wars maybe similar but no a c section isn't like having your gall bladder out

Are you an adult? Have you ever known someone have a c section?

you can perform an emergency c-sections anywhere. It doesn’t have to be in a ward. Plenty of paramedics do this in peoples houses.

I can’t get over how crazy this comment is! ‘Plenty’ 😂

Lol!!!!
no a paramedic does not do a c section at home!!

utter tosh.

So has there been any actual issues reported or are people getting themselves worked up over hypothetical what if's?

When I worked in a hospital a few years ago there was a fire in the children’s ward. We were all called n to help evacuate.

I'm now wondering about how the plans work, because I'm in emergency planning for something else.

Are operating theatres 'contained' so they can carry on if the fire is in another part of the hospital or do they have to evacuate immediately?

It would seem safer to finish an operation rather than evacuate if there isn't an immediate nearby risk of fire.

When DS was in NICU, I got chatting to a trainee nurse, who was an ex-student of mine.

Fire and evacuation was one of the things we talked about, with the added complications of being in lockdown.

Each incubator and cot had its own built in battery, that kicked in, if there was a power cut or if the incubator/cot was unplugged to evacuate.

Each incubator also had an oxygen cannister attached to the bottom, enough to last whilst wheeling the incubator to another part of the hospital with an oxygen supply. There were different parts of the hospital to evacuate to, depending on if baby was reliant on oxygen or not. If the oxygen supply was compromised, there was a store of cannisters elsewhere, to replace the ones on the cot.

Remembering what I was like labouring my back to back first child (at that very hospital) I can’t even imagine how I’d have reacted to being told we had to evacuate! Although I could have been used as an effective contraceptive, given the expletives coming from me..!
Glad everyone is ok and the fire is out.

I know. I think it deserves a place in classics just for the sheer stupidity of the whataboutery