Government hospitals face high fire risk, patients in line of danger

SURAT: A month back, fire in the dialysis centre at the New Civil Hospital (NCH) destroyed large number of equipment. A fire in ICU of a government healthcare facility due to negligence of one or other staff member is an occurrence which is reported number of times in the last two years. Unused

fire safety

equipment which gather dust is a common sight at hospitals. In case of fire, panic takes over common sense and lives of patients are put at risk.

Chief fire officer at Surat Municipal Corporation (SMC) Vasant Parikh said, “We have served notices to all these government hospitals too. None of them have fully functional fire fighting systems. Many of the installed equipment are rusted and don’t function in the time of crisis.”

Chief medical officer (CMO) of NCH Dr Ketan Nayak said, “We have hydrants, extinguishers etc. They are placed in all wings and at arms length. We also have conducted demonstration on how to use it in case of fire.”

“However, we don’t have new fire safety systems installed. Our fire safety equipment were installed in 2011-12. After that according to the new norms, the system is not in place,” he added.

Nayak said that NCH has a project implementation unit (PIU) which has made plans and to install the new fire safety system and made request to health department in Gandhinagar. Once the approval comes, the new system will be installed.

Surat NCH is a 1,250-bed hospital having 20 departments with daily outdoor patient flow of 3,500 to 4,200. It also has six different intensive care units (ICUs) with 75 bed capacity and 18 operation theatres. NCH campus also houses medical college with hostel accommodating 250 students.

“Operation theatres (OT), ICUs and even dialysis centres are the most vulnerable to fire incidents in NCH and even in SMC-run SMIMER,” a senior doctor from the city said.

“In many of the operation theatres, electrical fittings are old and rusted. There is no regular electrical audit even in such a big government hospitals. At times it is scary to perform a surgery there,” he added.

It is not that only NCH the faces such problems. Even Surat Municipal Corporation (SMC)-run SMIMER, which is a 785-bed hospital with eight ICUs, out patient department (OPD) of 2,800 per day, 20 departments and 18 OTs, faces similar issues.

CMO of SMIMER Dr Jayesh Patel said, “We do conduct regular mock drills and have all equipment like fire extinguishers and hydrants up-to-date. Our system is robust.” SMIMER has also witnessed small fires in the last two years at its ICUs and OTs and other places. However, no loss of life has been reported.