A devastating fire broke out shortly after midnight on Tuesday, June 30, engulfing and destroying the administrative block of the Bamenda Regional Hospital. The blaze spread rapidly through the building, gutting essential facilities including the ICT office, the statistics unit, the medical library, the Pharmacy warehouse, and the Chaplaincy.
Multiple leadership offices—including those of the Medical Adviser, General Supervisor, and Human Resource department—were also ruined, inflicting a major setback on one of the primary referral hospitals in the North West Region.
The financial and operational losses are severe, with images from the scene depicting caved-in roofing, charred furniture, and completely destroyed office equipment. Hospital officials confirmed that numerous administrative records, files, and vital medical documents were lost to the flames.
Notably, boxes containing free genotype test results stored within the affected offices were completely incinerated, complicating patient data recovery.
Before emergency rescue teams arrived, a chaotic scene unfolded as hospital staff, patient caregivers, and night-shift workers forced open the main entrance to salvage valuable equipment and documents. Members of the defense and security forces later joined the firefighting efforts, working under intense conditions to finally contain the blaze and prevent it from leaping to adjacent clinical wards.
Fortunately, no injuries or fatalities were reported in the incident. In the immediate aftermath of the disaster, hospital management convened an emergency meeting to evaluate the scale of the destruction and coordinate an interim response strategy. While authorities have launched an official investigation into the incident, the exact cause of the fire remains unknown, and a comprehensive financial assessment of the damage is still underway.
Moving forward, several administrative and support services at the Bamenda Regional Hospital are expected to face significant disruptions. Hospital leadership will focus on recovery efforts, aiming to secure surviving records, replace destroyed equipment, and develop rehabilitation plans to restore normalcy. Hospital authorities have promised to provide further updates as the investigation progresses and rebuilding efforts begin.
