A Covid-19 patient caused panic when he set fire to his mattress while trying to escape a hospital in the southern Spanish city of Cadiz.

The 63-year-old man set fire to his mattress in his room on the sixth floor of the Puerta del Mar University Hospital on Wednesday evening, the newspaper La Voz de Cadiz reported, citing authorities.

The man had planned to cause chaos and take advantage of it to escape unnoticed. But the plan went wrong and the suspected arsonist was arrested while still in hospital.

The patient is now being held in the high-security wing of another hospital in Cadiz.

While the fire was extinguished relatively quickly, the man succeeded in causing considerable chaos and panic after flames were seen shooting out of windows.

Three floors of the hospital were evacuated, according to reports.