Govind Sharma
JAMMU, Mar 6: Majority of the hospitals in Jammu and Kashmir are not equipped with adequate fire safety equipments and thus, lives of the patients as well as staff of these health institutions are under threat.
Official sources told Excelsior that only a few Government and Private hospitals in J&K have adequate fire fighting system in place and majority of the Hospitals have been functioning with critical safety gaps including lack of functional fire-fighting system.
“Around 70 percent Government as well as private hospitals in the UT do not have basic fire safety measures in place. They lack smoke & fire management system and in many health institutions, unreliable fire management systems have been noticed,” they added.
Sources in Fire & Emergency Services said emergency exit gates in almost all hospitals remain locked and in some hospitals using fire-safe doors was not according to the standards. “Moreover, there are no water for fire-fighting measures, no emergency power supply and public address system is also dysfunctional,” the sources maintained.
“Time and again, we use to advise the hospital authorities to install adequate fire safety equipment in their premises and conduct mock drills at regular intervals, but least interest is shown on their part to conduct mock drills which are necessary to prepare the hospital staff to control fire,” they said.
They alleged that organizers and management of most of the hospitals install a few fire extinguishers in the name of fire safety; however, under Fire Prevention and Life Safety Measures Act this is not the only requirement. Sources added that there are many more things that need to be done in the hospitals for fire safety. They said it has been noticed several times that in case of fire, the emergency team of the hospitals doesn’t even know how to operate a simple fire extinguisher.
Further, sources in Health & Medical Education Department told Excelsior that some hospitals in Kashmir viz SDH Keller, SDH Chrar-i-Sharief, SDH Magam and SDH Soibugh do not have any fire safety equipments at place. They said fire safety equipments have also not been installed at Government Medical College Baramulla, due to which patients are always at risk of fire.
Sources said that present Additional Chief Secretary (ACS), Health & Medical Education Department is very serious on the issue and in last three months, he has taken three meetings of the heads of the health institutions of the UT to take short and long term fire-safety measures.
They said the latest meeting on the issue was chaired by the ACS yesterday in which he underscored the critically and urgency in undertaking fire safety measures in all the health institutions across length and breadth of the UT. He also directed the heads of the health institutions to undertake the mock fire safety drills at an earliest in coordination with the Fire Services Department.
The ACS further directed them to approach Fire & Emergency Services Department for conducting fresh inspections of the buildings of the hospitals and seeking ‘No Objection Certificates’ from them.
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