They were several hundred to await the passage of the Jordanian king Abdullah II, to express their anger. The monarch visited this Saturday at the government hospital in Salt, a city located about thirty kilometers from the capital Amman. A little earlier, 7 Covid-19 patients in intensive care have died in the establishment, following oxygen supply failure nearly an hour. The victims are four men and two women, according to a source from the hospital where some 150 coronavirus patients are being treated.
A tragedy that has caused great emotion in the country, while many denounce the lack of human and material resources in hospitals to fight against the epidemic. Habis Kharabsha was in the hospital to see his sick parents when the oxygen was cut off: “I gave my father heart massage three times, and my mother twice. I called the hospital director at 10:30 am. Covid isolation ward only has one doctor and two nurses for 50 to 60 patients, it’s unfair“, he testifies.
Even if an investigation has just been opened to determine with certainty the cause of death, King Abdullah II has already dismissed the director of the hospital in Salt from his post. The Minister of Health, Nazir Obeidat, has meanwhile tendered his resignation.
An extraordinary meeting of the Parliament and the Senate is due to take place on Sunday, announced the president of the Chamber of Deputies Abdelmoneim Saleh. “In these difficult times, institutions cannot tolerate negligence and error, _especially in treatment given in hospitals, “he said.”No leniency can be given to those responsible for the negligence that led to today’s incident and others“in the past,” Saleh added.
The kingdom of 10 million people has recorded more than 464,000 cases of infection, including 5,200 deaths, according to the authorities. Since the launch of its vaccination campaign in January, 65,000 people have received at least one dose of the German-American vaccine Pfizer / BioNTech or the Chinese vaccine Sinopharm.
Jordan also received on Friday a first delivery of 144,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine through the Covax device set up by the WHO to facilitate the access of the most disadvantaged countries to the vaccine. A second delivery is expected in April, it is specified in a joint press release from Unicef, the European Union and the WHO.
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