Saahil Suhail
Early Times Report
Anantnag, Dec 1: The fire safety is in critical stage at Maternity and Child Care Hospital Anantnag. This can be gauged from the fact that despite the passage of a month now the hospital authorities have failed to refill or replace the expired fire extinguishers.
The fire extinguishers, installed outside the indoor laboratory and in post-operative ward, have expired last month, but nobody has paid attention to refill them so that it can be used when needed. Similar is the case with other fire extinguishers in the hospital.
“The hospital building has fire extinguishers at half a dozen places where they can’t help much in case of a fire as almost all of them have expired,” officials said, however wished anonymity.
The busiest wards of the hospital include the emergency ward, operation theatre and several wards of various other departments including offices don’t also have vibrant firefighting system in place, Early Times learnt from credible sources.
They claimed that the issue of fire safety was brought into the notice of senior officials of Anantnag Medical College but they aren’t paying attention to this critical issue. “Despite knowing the fact that with the onset of winter the gas heaters have been put in use at Anantnag still the hospital administration isn’t paying any attention to fire safety. They are simply putting the lives of patients and attendants at risk by ignoring the fire safety measures,” they added.
Officials said that the hospital located in congested locality called Sherbagh and the hospital building was itself surrounded by high tension wires which make it a vulnerable place.
“Earlier as well this hospital has caught fires and since the building is in worst condition and the internal electrical wiring is so pathetic that any mishap can take place here,” they said.
The hospital is visited by hundreds of patients’ mostly pregnant ladies. Except for fire extinguishers; other fire safety measures are non-existent here. The hospital also faces space crunch which increases the risk to lives of people in case of a fire.
Sources said that if there is any fire incident in the hospital it can prove a catastrophe in terms of loss of lives and property.
Important to remember, the administration in Anantnag has constituted a six (6) member committee for inspecting all government and private hospitals in the district.
The members include, Deputy Chief Medical Officer Anantnag, District Health Officer Anantnag, Tehsildar, AD Fire Services Anantnag, AEE R&B and Dy SDRF Anantnag.
The committee has been directed to inspect all the hospitals and conduct verification of registration of Nursing homes.
District Magistrate Anantnag K K Sidha has also directed Chief Executive Officer Municipal Council Anantnag and Executive Officers of Municipalities to revisit all the permissions granted to medical institutions. |