Sixteen Covid patients were rescued and shifted to safer places after a fire broke out in the ICU of a private hospital on Sunday (April 25). A fire broke out in Ayush Hospital located on the fifth floor of a multi-storey building in Surat in the state of Gujarat around 11.40 pm. Hospital staff rushed to help the patients in the ICU all of who were on the ventilator. They evacuated five patients and the rest were rescued by the fire brigade personnel. All the patients were shifted to safer places and no casualty was reported due to the blaze. But three patients (Raju Patel, 52, Arvind Singala, 45, and Ramji Lukhi, 60) died after being shifted to another Hospital. “The condition of a few patients was critical and they might have died during the shifting process due to irregular oxygen supply,” said Dr Ghanshyam Patel, who runs the hospital. The fire started due to a short circuit in AC. “Fire tenders were rushed to the hospital and the fire was brought under control within half an hour,” said Basant Pareek, Chief Fire Officer.