At a time when every life is precious, every moment counts, as thousands perish all across the world due to the coronavirus, Iraq seems to be frittering away lives – at great cost to its reputation. And all due to negligence.

A fire broke out in an intensive care unit for coronavirus patients in the Iraqi capital Baghdad, after an oxygen cylinder reportedly exploded, killing over 80. Clearly, this could have been avoided. Even Iraq’s Prime Minister Mustafa Al Khademi was considerably nettled, so much so that he fired the director-general of the Baghdad Health Department in the Al-Rusafa area, where the hospital is located. He also fired the director of Ibn Al-Khatib Hospital and its director of engineering and maintenance, according to a statement from the Health Ministry and his office.

Initial reports indicated the fire at Ibn Al-Khatib hospital late on Saturday was caused when an oxygen cylinder exploded.

The flames spread quickly across multiple floors in the middle of the night, as dozens of relatives were at the bedside of the 30 patients in the hospital’s intensive care unit where most severe COVID-19 cases are treated, a medical source said.

The hospital, according to the authorities, had no fire protection system and false ceilings allowed the flames to spread to highly flammable products. The majority of the victims died because they had to be moved and were taken off ventilators, while the others were suffocated by the smoke.

Firefighters rushed to battle the flames that raged across the second floor of the hospital. Civil defence teams were busy putting out the flames until the early hours of the morning.

The Health Ministry said at least 200 people were rescued from the scene. The fire came as Iraq grapples with a severe second wave of the coronavirus pandemic. Daily virus cases now average around 8,000, the highest since Iraq began recording infection rates early last year. At least 15,200 people have died of coronavirus in Iraq among a total of at least 100,000 confirmed cases.

Iraq’s hospitals have been worn down by decades of conflict and poor investment, with shortages in medicines and hospital beds.

The fire – which according to several sources was caused by negligence often linked to endemic corruption in Iraq – sparked anger on social media, with a hashtag demanding the health minister be sacked trending on Twitter.

In a statement, the government’s human rights commission said the incident was “a crime against patients exhausted by COVID-19 who put their lives in the hands of the health ministry and its institutions and instead of being treated, perished in flames.”

Iraq’s healthcare system is in crisis, according to a report published last year. There’s a shortage of drugs and the medical staff to administer them. Doctors are fleeing in their thousands, and life expectancy and child mortality rates are far below average for the region... a new threat has emerged: across the border in Iran, coronavirus has killed scores of people and infected many more, including a deputy health minister, prompting the Iraqi government to close the frontier. Iraq reported its first cases in recent days.

Over the past three decades the country has been ravaged – by war and UN sanctions, by sectarian conflict and the rise of Daesh. Yet even in times of relative stability, Iraq has missed opportunities to expand and rebuild its healthcare system. The nation launched its vaccination drive last month, and has already received nearly 650,000 doses of different vaccines -- the majority by donation or through the Covax programme, which is backing poorer nations to procure vaccines. Over 250,000 people have received at least one dose. Health authorities have faced an uphill battle to convince Iraqis to get vaccinated, in the face of widespread scepticism over the jab and public reluctance to wear masks since the pandemic began.