Some patients with serious psychiatric conditions are still sleeping on sofas at a Belfast mental health facility months after serious building problems were discovered there.

The Acute Mental Health Inpatient Centre opened just six years ago at a cost of £33m, but has been dogged with issues.

Rot and black mould were previously found in the building – which has continued to suffer from newly-discovered leaks – and the entire water system now needs replaced, which will add millions of pounds to existing repair costs.

The Belfast Health Trust said no patients have had to move out as a result of the building issues, and works on two damaged bedrooms are due to be completed in “the coming days”.

The centre at Belfast City Hospital provides 74 acute mental health en-suite bedrooms, including six psychiatric intensive care beds.

Last September, it was revealed that leaking pipes in the Acute Mental Health building had caused £4m worth of damage. Water had been dripping from various pipes since 2022 causing corrosion within the hot water system and damage to walls and floors.

At the time, it was thought damage was confined to a small area.

But further exploration which involved ripping up two bedrooms identified more extensive damage, including leaking pipes across the building which had saturated floors and caused metal stud walls to rot and mould to grow on plaster.

One bedroom previously had an ant infestation and was closed immediately.

In March, the BBC revealed that repair costs for the building could be up to £10m.

Last month, the health trust said the projected costs for the newly-discovered water system issues were up to £6m, not including legal fees.

Two bedrooms which had suffered damage were due to be repaired by the end of this summer. As a result of their closure, capacity at the unit has been stretched, leading to patients forced to sleep on sofas.

The Belfast Trust said: “Works on the [bedrooms] are almost complete and are subject to final checks… it is expected that both rooms will be available for the delivery of services in the coming days.”

While a plan has been put in place to temporarily rehome patients at Knockbracken Healthcare Park south of Belfast, that facility has not been used to date.

The trust is taking legal advice over where liability for the building failures lies.

The facility was built by Graham BAM Healthcare Partnership (GBHP), a joint partnership between County Down-based Graham Construction and BAM Ireland in the Republic of Ireland.

GBHP has also been involved in Belfast’s new maternity hospital which remains unopened and almost £50m over budget.

The Belfast Trust said it was “currently working with its legal advisors to appoint independent specialists to undertake a comprehensive review of the water system and any potential sources of water ingress and to help identify liability for the costs of the remediation work”.

In a response to the BBC, the trust said a survey of the entire building had taken place ahead of the repair works.

In August 2024, the body which inspects healthcare facilities – the RQIA – issued a notice to the trust telling it to replace doors and door handles at the facility because of potential patient self-harm as a result of ligature risks.

This was to be complied with by 17 February this year, with an extension granted to April, and now compliance required by this November.

A couple were left badly burnt after fleeing for their lives when their fireplace exploded, engulfing their home in an “orange fireball”.

Angela Palit, 59, described how she was blown across the kitchen, and thought she was going to die as her hair caught fire and she felt her face burning.

The horror unfolded after she arrived home to Penarth Marina, Vale of Glamorgan, from work and asked her husband, former BBC Wales reporter Nick Palit, 60, to put the fire on so she could enjoy a glass of wine.

South Wales Fire and Rescue Service has been asked to comment on the blaze and bioethanol fires, such as the one that caused the explosion.

“I caught a fireball really that I was not expecting,” recalled Angela on BBC Radio Wales.

“I was trying to put it out with a damp cloth, and it just exploded at me as I was walking towards it, and just blew me across the kitchen.

“I ended up on the floor. My hair was on fire, my face was burning, I thought I was going to die.

“And then Nick just dragged me out and said ‘we need to get out’.”

It was the speed “that really, really shocked us” added Nick, describing the events of last Tuesday, 16 September.

He described it as a bioethanol fireplace that does not need a chimney flue, where liquid is poured on to a cotton gauze to create a “candle effect”.

“We lit it as we always have done,” Nick added.

“We probably haven’t used it for about five months because it’s been summer, and it started.

Smoke, black smoke was coming off it, which was very unusual, and the smoke alarm went off almost immediately.”

Nick turned the fire off and went to open the patio doors to let the smoke out, adding: “I heard her screaming.

“I turned around and saw her on the floor, I saw her flying through the air, and grabbed her.”

He described how they ran through the garden gate as he dialled 999, saying: “As we were on the phone to the emergency services, within less than a minute it was engulfed in an orange fireball, the whole downstairs of the house.”

The couple were initially treated by paramedics at the scene, then at the University Hospital of Wales in Cardiff, before being sent to the specialist burns unit at Swansea’s Morriston Hospital.

Angela suffered burns to her face and hands, while falling debris left Nick with burns on his arm and elbow.

The couple are now living temporarily in Airbnb accommodation, and have been told by insurers it will take at least six months for their home to be rebuilt.

In what Nick described as a “double whammy”, the couple had four e-bikes, worth hundreds, that they chained together outside their home after the blaze.

When they returned from treatment on Tuesday, they were gone.

“It’s obvious to anyone that’s driven past, that this house has sustained a fire and is probably abandoned,” said Nick.

“Obviously the thieves have come along and they must have had a van and just lifted them up completely and there were four together chained together.

“The security cameras, the security lights, all of that stuff that would normally be protecting it, wasn’t there.”

To add insult to injury, a security tracker alerted Nick to where his bikes were – in a property two miles (3.2km) away.

He arranged to meet police officers at the building, which was a small block of flats that had six homes in it.

“But because we couldn’t pinpoint which one, they weren’t prepared to knock doors to find out,” he said.

So despite being within metres of the bikes, they were not able to establish which of the flats they were in, and recover them.

South Wales Police has been asked to comment on the thefts.