Hospitals in Rijeka, Karlovac, Ogulin and Duga Resa will admit patients from the Lopaca psychiatric hospital, which was damaged in a fire on Friday afternoon when one person died and a few more were injured in the blaze.

The injured people were provided with first aid and in the meantime, some of them were transferred to the hospital in Rijeka. The mental health institution in Lopaca is a few kilometres away from Rijeka.

The fire was brought under control last night after 50 firefighters were engaged to extinguish the blaze that broke out at the third storey and spread to the second and the fourth storey. The building was evacuated.

The crisis management staff, that convened in Karlovac to discuss the developments, decided that the hospitals in Karlovac, Ogulin and Duga Resa could admit 30 patients from the damaged Lopaca ward.

According to the police report, those injured included psychiatric patients and personnel from the Lopaca hospital.

On late Friday evening, Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic and Health Minister Milan Kujundzic arrived at Lopaca to get an insight into the extent of the disaster.

Plenkovic thanked firefighters for their brave efforts to rescue patients, some of whom are bedridden.

The premier said that the first step now would be to offer the assistance to all the patients from that fire-damaged hospital and that an investigation would be immediately launched.

Minister Kujundzic praised the medical staff, special emergency medical services and the Rijeka Hospital over their response after the fire broke out in the Lopaca hospital.

“I am very sorry that this happened. Hospital buildings are old and such things could happen,” Kujundzic said.

He said that hospitals in Rijeka and Gospic would receive the Lopaca institution’s patients if necessary.