Govt to house fire victims

2010-08-02 14:09

Cape Town - The Gauteng health and social services department says it will help find accommodation for the Pieter Wessels old age home residents made homeless by a fire on Sunday night.

Speaking from the Zanele Mbeki Frail Care Centre, in Nigel, the department’s Teddy Gomba said some of the residents would be accommodated at the government-run centre while the rest would be placed in old age homes around the area.

“We have the expertise of social workers and community care workers here who will be checking on their (fire survivors) needs,” he told News24.

He said a challenge facing old age home personnel will be trying to piece together information lost when the personal files of the survivors were destroyed in the blaze.

“Obviously their files were burnt in the fire. We will now have to work to re-establish contact with family members for some of them,” Gomba said.

He said the group of around 75 old people included the “very frail” and others with “speech problems”.

Fearful

They were part of a group of 84 people rescued from the blaze on Sunday night.

“Some of them literally can’t do anything for themselves,” he said.

Gomba said some of the old age home residents were still “obviously fearful after surviving a fire”.

Eighteen people died and three were hospitalised after the fire. 

Netcare 911 spokesperson Chris Botha said after firefighters had doused the flames, they found the bodies of 17 people in the building.

Serious condition

An eighteenth person is suspected to have died of a heart attack after the fire.

One unidentified man had to be airlifted to Charlotte Maxeke Academic Hospital after he sustained 40% burns to his body while the other two were taken to local hospitals.

Charlotte Maxeke Academic Hospital spokesperson Lungiswa Mvumvu told News24 the man was in a “very serious condition”.

Police say the cause of the fire is still under investigation.
 
 

- News24