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STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — A girl critically injured in a Guyana dormitory fire that killed 19 students is being treated for burns over 40% of her body at Northwell Health’s Regional Burn Center at Staten Island University Hospital, Ocean Breeze, according to hospital officials.
Those who perished in the fire in Guyana were mostly girls trapped in a school dormitory deliberately set ablaze by a student who was upset her mobile phone was confiscated, a top official told the Associated Press earlier this week. Officials said the blaze raced through the the building constructed of wood and concrete after it had been locked for the night by the dorm administrator to prevent the girls from leaving after hours, the Associated Press reported.
A secondary school student, who was a victim of the fire, was flown to the SIUH burn center on Saturday, said Dr. Eric Cioe Pena, vice president of Northwell’s Center for Global Health. While he couldn’t provide the age of the student, Pena said the victims of the fire generally range in age from 12 to 17 years old.
“We work pretty closely with the government of Guyana and the government hospital [Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation] where this girl was taken. We’ve been in pretty constant contact since the tragedy occurred. We deployed a team to coordinate with the ground operations this past week. And we’ve been working with the Minister of Health to support them,” said Pena.
The center will be providing expert burn care and rehabilitation for the fire victim, who in still in critical but stable condition, “but is improving,” he said.
“When this patient was identified as needing advanced burn care, that was an additional kind of resource that we could help out with. So we offered to accept transfer of this patient to the Staten Island Burn Center,” he said.
“We’ve also been maintaining contact with the government of Guyana on a pretty regular basis, to make sure we’re being responsive to their needs and helping them out in this time of tragedy and crisis,” added Pena.
In addition, a team from Northwell’s Center for Traumatic Stress, Resiliency and Recovery was sent to Mahdia, Guyana to assist in the affected community, he said.
As part of the Guyana relief efforts, Northwell Health is also using its crisis telemedicine platform developed for the war in Ukraine. Northwell Health is providing tele-psychiatric services for victims, families and the community members in the affected region of Guyana.
A vigil was held over the weekend in Richmond Hill, Queens — where a very large Guyanese population resides — to mourn the loss of the 19 students, according to Northwell Health.
Associated Press material was used in this report.
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