Cigarette on fifth floor suspected
Update 23:00 GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – A patient who suffered burns from a fire that broke out in the psychiatric unit on the fifth floor of the HUG university hospitals in Geneva died Tuesday 3 January, and a member of staff remains in serious condition from smoke inhalation. The patient was a woman in her 50s.
A cigarette is suspected as the source of the fire, with one found near the head of the bed, along with a packet of them. Police are investigating if a lapse in security is involved, since smoking is banned in the hospital.
The fire broke out shortly before midnight Monday and firefighters, who were at the scene within four minutes, had the fire under control within a half hour, but 20 people, had to be treated for smoke inhalation.
The hospital’s emergency plan was kept active for three hours, with several patients from lower floors moved to a makeshift treatment centre on the ground floor as a precaution.
The room of the patient who was injured was completely destroyed by the fire and an adjoining room was badly damaged.
Geneva police say the cause of the fire is not yet known and an investigation has been opened, but TSR reports that a cigarette is suspected of starting the blaze.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – At least 73 people have died in a hospital fire in south Kolcata (Calcutta), India, according to initial reports from India’s media, and 75 people were rescued. The fire at Amri Hospital broke out in the early hours of the morning Friday 9 December. The fire department says, according to the Times of India, that it will sue the hospital for not having adequate equipment or a rapid evacuation plan. The seven-storey building was thick with smoke hours after the fire started.
Links to other sites: Reuters, Times of India
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – The Hug university hospitals in Geneva late Tuesday 15 November said it is bringing charges for endangering life against lab workers and the union that is backing them in their hospital strike, following an incident today in the maternity unit. Urgently needed lab results were supplied to medical staff with delays of three to five hours, says the hospital, a clear violation of the guarantee to ensure basic services during a strike.
The hospital is also filing criminal charges against the lab workers’ union (VPOD-SSP) for inciting to endanger the lives of others for its threat to block the immuno-hematology transfusion unit Thursday.
Tensions between the hospital and the union rose Tuesday when the union announced that it will treat only blood units that the Hug buys. This, says the hospital, is only about 115 of the 500-700 needed a week not just by the hospital but also private clinics, doctors’ offices and elsewhere. The entire canton’s blood supplies will thus be “held hostage” says the hospital’s direction.
The other blood units are dealt with by the hospital’s lab, whose workers are striking; the union says the blood products will be treated and stored until after the strike.
But the Hug notes that in the meantime, this will put at risk several units, in particular emergency services, maternity, surgery and the pediatric unit.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – The long-serving president of Yemen, Ali Abdullah Saleh, has been transferred to a hospital in Saudi Arabia after an attack on his headquarters left him with head injuries, but reports on his medical condition are contradictory. Yemeni Vice President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi took on the responsibilities of president Saturday night.
The Yemeni government responded to the attacks by attacking the home of tribal leader Sadeq al-Ahmar, who is suspected of being behind the attack on Saleh and others.
(Update) GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – The catastrophic tornado season in the US has brought death and destruction to another town: a large stretch of Joplin, Missouri was flattened and at least 89 people are dead, with the death toll climbing. The tornado is estimated to have been between half and three-quarters of a mile wide, and it stayed on the ground for four miles, hitting a hospital and flattening several neighbourhoods in the town of 50,000, at about 18:00 Sunday 22 May. Ten semi-trailer trucks on Interstate 44 were flipped over, according to CNN.
Hospital workers had just enough warning to move patients into hallways: the tornado blew out windows, spraying glass in rooms. “The storm spread debris about 60 miles away, with medical records, X-rays, insulation and other items falling to the ground in Greene County, said Larry Woods, assistant director of the Springfield-Greene County Office of Emergency Management,” reports the Saint Louis Dispatch in Missour,
The tornado was part of a larger storm system that put down twisters in several parts of the Midwest, but this appears to have been the worst, according to NPR.
Joplin’s last famous tornado was 5 May 1971, a twister that stayed on the ground for 40 blocks. It was worthy of a book, after killing one person and injuring 50.
Links to other sites: NPR, St Louis Dispatch
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - The first full-face transplant patient in the US appeared in public 9 May for the first time since his 15-hour surgery in March 2011. Dallas Wiens, 25, from Fort Worth, Texas, received an anonymous donor’s nose, lips, skin, muscles and nerves.
“I adapted to it very quickly,” Wiens told reporters at a news conference, saying that as time went on “I was able to smell again and breathe through my nose. Every step of the way was amazing.”
Although Wiens’ surgeon Bohdan Pomahac said the transplant results were better than expected, the team was unable to restore his sight, and it is not yet certain if Wiens will regain all of his nerve and muscle function.
Wiens was severely burned in November 2008 when he hit a power line while painting a church. The surgery took place at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, Massachussetts and was paid for by part of a $3.4 million research grant from the US Department of Defense.
The world’s first full-face transplant was done in 2010 in Spain and the first partial-face transplant was done in France in 2005. In the past year several partial-face transplants have been done, in the US and Spain, but also in China.
The transplants require a donor and use human skin, but research, including work at Switzerland’s EPFL polytechnic institute in Lausanne, holds out hope that artificial skin may also some day provide options.
Links to other sites: BBC, EPFL, LA Times, Medill News Service
Liam and Nick Bates, Swiss ski dream week team
This is the fifth in the Swiss dream ski week series, where Nick and Liam Bates, regular contributors to GenevaLunch, see how much great skiing at top Swiss resorts they can pack into one week. Be sure to check out the video at the end.
Click on images to view larger
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Davos to non-skiers is possibly best known as the place where the world’s political and business leaders meet every year to discuss the state of the world. But long before it had that reputation it was a resort with a long history, popular with skiers because of its reliably good snow.
Davos basics
The combined resorts of Davos and Klosters make up one of the largest ski areas in the Alps, with five mountains, 300km of pistes, 85 downhill runs and just about every variation on winter sports you can imagine. One of the most recent additions is a “slow slope” on Schatzalp.
Two of the mountains here stay open later in the season than many Swiss resorts: Jacobshorn until 1 May and Parsenn (Davos and Klosters) unti 25 April, whereas many resorts will be closing in Switzerland and France starting 27 March.
This is a big resort area, with a very good range of prices and types of accommodation, so it’s worth getting a bit of help from the local tourism office to plan where you’ll stay. The town has hotels for heads of state and close by you’ll find farmhouse accommodation and simple B&Bs.
The town and piste maps are well done and helpful for advance planning. If you’re planning to travel from Geneva by train, allow 5 hours 20 minutes, via Zurich, Landquart and Davos.
Nick, who spent a bit of time at the hospital, reflects on life off the slopes while Liam, who fell in love with the igloo village on the mountainside, was equally impressed by the “big, big jumps” at the snowpark.
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - The British 15-year-old boy injured Wednesday 23 February in a freak chairlift accident in Châtel, France is in hospital in Annecy, France, police confirmed to GenevaLunch, but French authorities have not issued information about the state of his health a day after the accident.
Vevey, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Eight people were taken to hospital to be checked and 53 others were treated by emergency teams at rue de la Madeleine 37 in Vevey after they were affected by odours coming from an apartment where a man who had been dead for several days was found.
The man and a woman who was alive but unconscious were found at 10:00 Wednesday morning 23 February after police were called about a bad smell coming from the apartment.
A large team of police, fire and health workers converged on the scene after the macabre discovery, and the area was partially blocked off to allow them to work.
Police have opened a criminal investigation to identify the people in the apartment and to identify the cause of the man’s death.
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Surgery patients are being directed to other area hospitals if they doesn’t require the specialty care offered by Chuv university hospitals in Lausanne, reports Le Temps, following an outbreak of a drug-resistant bacteria. Six patients have developped gastrointestinal bacteria, broad-spectrum Vancomycin resistant enterococci, and 38 others are being investigated, according to the newspaper.
The hospital has called the outbreak a nuisance but not worrisome. It spreads easily, so those concerned have been put in isolation, and concern remains that its resistance to anti-bacterial treatments will be passed to other bacteria that are more dangerous.
Update 19:00 Sierre, canton Valais, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Dr Daniel Savioz, chief medical officer at the cantonal hospital in Sierre, has not had his contract renewed by the Réseau Santé Valais (RSV) after he questioned the quality of some visceral surgery operations at the hospital. Savioz, who is also an associate professor at the University of Geneva hospitals (HUG), works with renowned specialist Dr Philippe Morel at the HUG. The two hospitals have a partnership agreement, but Savioz’s contract was not renewed after he called in Morel and another professor, sharing a number of patient files in order to more closely study the situation.
Savioz has remained discreet in his comments, but Morel Wednesday 24 February told Swiss news agency ATS that he was shocked and upset by the decision. “It’s an inappropriate sanction against an excellent doctor.”
RSV, a state body that which medical care and hospitals in canton Valais, said at a press conference Thursday that it ended Savioz’s contract because it considered unacceptable his move in sharing several files with Geneva colleagues, against the wishes of his superiors in the RSV. Even a partnership agreement with the HUG in Geneva does not make this acceptable, it noted, adding that the RSV is anxious to ensure that there is no deterioration in the work atmosphere within the visceral surgery unit at the Sierre hospital, it noted.
A man who was declared dead and was about to be refrigerated by a funeral home in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province in China suddenly began moving his mouth and making noises. The funeral home rushed the man, who was a cancer patient, to a hospital, which declared that he had never died. His sister had found him motionless on the floor at home and thought the 70-year-old was dead, reports China Daily (Qianjiang Evening News).
Zurich, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - A couple racing to the hospital for the birth of their child were caught in rush-hour traffic in Zurich Monday at 18:30, ats/romandie reports. The husband phoned the police who managed to reach them, and one of the police officers took over at the wheel, since the woman was unable to get out of the car, and with sirens blaring he followed the police car to the hospital. A boy was born at 18:37, who was still nameless Tuesday.
Budapest, Hungary (GenevaLunch) - Felipe Massa left hospital and joined his wife Raffaela, six months pregnant, to return by private jet to his home in Brazil. He was seriously injured during the qualifying stages for the Hungarian Grand Prix when a spring that had fallen off compatriot Rubens Barrichello’s car struck his helmet. Massa said that he remembers nothing of the crash and will wait until he sees how he recuperates before deciding whether to return to racing. Michael Schumacher is coming out of retirement to replace Massa in the Ferrari team.
Details: The Times
Lausanne, Switzerland (TSR and 20Minutes, Fre) – A doctor who works at the Vaud cantonal hospital (Chuv) in Lausanne came down with symptoms of swine flu (A/H1N1) and has been quarantined and treated with Tamiflu.
Noted British physicist Stephen Hawking is “very ill” and has been hospitalized in Cambridge, England with what appears to be a chest infection, but no diagnosis has been given publicly. Hawking has motor neurone disease and is nearly completely paralyzed. Reuters
Natasha Richardson, wife of Liam Neeson, died in a New York hospital after sustaining head injuries from a ski accident in Quebec’s Mont Tremblant Resort in Canada. Richardson, 45, fell during a supervised lesson on a beginner slope and initially showed no signs of injury. She was not wearing a helmet at the time of the fall. The exact cause of her death has not been released. BBC, CBC (CNN article on head injuries)
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – A four-year-old has died and an adult was treated but recovered after being given blood platelet transfusions 18 February at the University Hospitals in Geneva (HUG).
