Fire Safety Audit recommendations thrown to wind
Irfan Tramboo
Srinagar, Mar 5: Government has ordered an inquiry into the overnight blaze that destroyed Bone & Joint Hospital at Barzulla in Srinagar to ascertain the cause of the incident. The fire has raised serious questions over the preparedness of hospitals across Kashmir in dealing with such situations.
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Panic gripped the hospital around 9:30 pm last night when the hospital building was seen engulfed by flames even as all the fire stations situated across Srinagar city were called in for the massive fire fighting operation.
The officials from the Fire & Emergency (F&E) Department told Excelsior that when they were on their way to Barzulla, the smoke was already up-indicating that the fire had already spread by the time the fire tenders reached the spot.
Upon reaching the spot, the locals living in the adjoining areas were already busy in the rescue operation. The locals were then joined by the personnel from the F&E Department and SDRF who then made efforts to get the patients out of the building up in flames.
By that time that was done, the administration had also roped in the ambulance service with the help of which the patients were taken to nearby hospitals. The scenes outside the hospital were disheartening, with patients seen out on roads, waiting.
Officials of the F&E Department while briefing about the incident said one U-shaped hospital building was involved in a fire and that the entire roofing as well as the ceiling of the building including the attic portion has been severely damaged.
“Hospital equipment in three operation theatres and wards of the second floor has been partly damaged in the fire. However, the ground and first floor sustained indirect damage due to smoke and water, while as the cause of under Police investigation,” officials said.
After strenuous efforts that continued for over 2 hours, the F&E personnel were finally able to douse down the flames while the top officials of the civil administration, F&E Department and police remained present at the stop until midnight, overseeing the operation.
Additional Chief Secretary (ACS) Health & Medical Education Department, Vivek Bhardwaj who reached the spot today briefed about the incident and said that the fire had emerged out of an emergency operation theatre situated on the top floor of the building and was in time brought under control.
“There was no injury reported while the locals and other departments worked in sync and the flames were brought down,” he said adding that the authorities are working to make the hospital operational in a week or so.
He underlined that as per the recommendations of the Fire Safety Audit, steps were taken across the hospitals in Kashmir while he added that a safety audit of every hospital has been carried out.
However, on contrary, Excelsior has learnt that there were no steps taken by the administration at the Bone & Joint Hospital, Barzulla aimed at ensuring compliance to the Fire Safety Audit Recommendations for the safety of the staff as well as patients in case of any emergency.
While there have been Fire Safety Audits carried out since 2012, there has been little compliance of the same from all the hospitals in Kashmir with B&J Hospital being no exception.
It has also come to the fore that there has been no implementation of the recommendations made by the concerned department after the Fire Safety Audit conducted in June 2021.
While it appears that the authorities have done very little to put in place the necessary firefighting mechanism at the hospital to deal with such emergencies, details suggest that time and again the recommendations made after the safety audits have been thrown to the wind.
So far, details suggest, the hospital has relied only on some Fire Extinguishers of 6kg capacity as well as the same number of CO2 Type Fire Extinguishers, while it has not been able to move beyond that, depicting the callousness of the authorities.
Meanwhile, GMC Srinagar today said that the cause of the fire is being investigated even as efforts are being made to resume the OPD as well as emergency services.
Principal Government Medical College (GMC), Srinagar Dr Samia Rashid also refuted the reports of LPG cylinders blasts in the hospital fire incident.
“The investigation in the cause of the fire is being ascertained while restoring the immediate patient care especially of shifted patients to various hospitals and resumption of OPD and Emergency Services at the unaffected building of Bone and Joint Hospital Barzulla is a top priority this time,” she said.
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