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| Fire Audit Claims Punctured | | |
Recent fire incident at Bone and Joint Hospital in Srinagar has put a question mark on the tall claims of Jammu and Kashmir administration about it conducting the fire safety audit of all the hospitals across the Union Territory.
When COVID-19 pandemic broke out in the country in early 2020 and several hospitals in India were gutted in fire the Jammu and Kashmir administration had ordered safety audits of various hospitals.
The audit was ordered to ensure that no major fire incident breaks out as many oxygen generation plants, large gas cylinders, other mechanical systems and dedicated feeders were functioning round the clock in these facilities.
However, last week’s fire incident in Bone and Joint hospital Srinagar exposed “fire safety audits” itself.
The fire in the exclusive orthopedic hospital should serve as a wakeup call and get the “fire safety audits” right.
The fire has shut the important hospital and there would have been a colossal tragedy without the help of volunteers who assisted the fire personnel big time to evacuate the patients in time and shifted them to safety.
If fire has broken out in Srinagar hospital, it can wreak havoc in Jammu hospitals also.
The Deputy Commissioners of all the districts along with concerned health authorities need to conduct fire safety and mechanical system audits of all hospitals to ensure that no fire related incident occurs in the first place. They should constitute joint teams to conduct audits at the earliest. It is imperative that they should put out a checklist to prevent fires and also save patients in case such untoward happens.
They should ensure that all the fire safety guidelines for hospitals issued by the government of India, prioritising a strict compliance strategy, third party accreditation on safety, and adoption of a fire response plan are in place.
Professionals call for ICUs to be equipped with an exhaust system to prevent smoke accumulation in a fire, ventilation cut-outs to prevent a blaze from spreading, periodic maintenance of safety equipment and, very importantly, an evacuation plan for the sickest patients, who may be attached to life-saving equipment. All these needed to be ensured and important within possibly little time to ensure that patients admitted to the facilities remain safe. The patient’s safety should be of paramount consideration for all the concerned. |
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