A fire exit at Gozo General Hospital was closed off during emergency

Patients had to be wheeled past the source of a fire at Gozo General Hospital on Christmas Day because a fire exit on one of the wards was shut off.

The fire broke out at an IT room near the entrance to the male ward at around 9pm on Sunday, leading to a mass evacuation.

Times of Malta understands that a second door on the ward was closed off, leaving hospital staff with no option but to lead some patients out through the ward entrance and into thickening smoke spreading along corridors.

Nobody was injured but several patients and staff had to be treated with oxygen masks and an inquiry is investigating what led to the fire.

Sources said that had the fire been more serious, it could have ended in tragedy.

According to three senior sources, a second door on the side of the male ward leading to another corridor was traditionally regarded as a fire exit for that ward.

Before the hospital was renovated, the male ward was separated from the operating theatre with a stretch of corridor and a side exit leading directly out to the corridor. That door served as a fire exit. This is a simplified plan of part of the hospital and may lack architectural precision. Other wards and corridors...