Hospitals in Vizag can’t avert Kolkata kind fire tragedy

Hospitals in Vizag can’t avert Kolkata kind fire tragedy
By SNV Sudhir
Visakhapatnam, Dec 9, 2011: Most hospitals in the city of destiny flout fire-safety norms and are potential death fire traps in case of a repeat of Kolkata tragedy, where more than 60 innocent patients along with their kin were killed in a hospital fire on Friday. Both GVMC’s fire prevention wing and district Fire officials issued notices to around 80 hospitals in the city to immediately comply with the fire safety norms or else face action.
While the issues related to those hospitals having four storied buildings are dealt by the GVMC’s fire prevention wing, above four floors buildings are dealt by the district fire office.
During a surprise inspection by district fire office it was revealed that around 50 hospitals of the 58 inspected were flouting fire safety norms. They were immediately issued notices to install fire safety equipment. GVMC’s fire prevention wing sleuths also inspected some of the hospitals in July this year and issued notices to 25 of them. There are about 350 clinics and hospitals run by government and private persons in the city.
“From Monday onwards we are going to inspect those hospitals which were served notices earlier for flouting fire norms as per the Fire Safety Act. Even now if the respective managements fail to comply with the norms we will recommend action towards those hospital buildings to the GVMC Commissioner,” told GVMC’s fire prevention officer U Sarath Babu to this correspondent.
He also added that all the hospitals lack trained staff to fire fight if any mishap happens.
Only some have installed fire extinguishers, while several hospitals do not have the ramp system to shift the patients to safety in the event of an accident. According to the highly placed sources district fire department had also advised some of the popular hospitals like Seven Hills, AMG International, NRI and Vasan Eye Care Centre to install additional fire equipment for safety measures. Sarath Babu also asked the hospital managements to avail the training facilities offered by them to handle fire emergency measures. “It’s damning to know that most hospitals in the city flout fire safety norms. What happened in Kolkata on Friday may happen in Vizag also anytime. God forbid nothing happened so far. Authorities rise only when an incident happens until then they prefer to put their feet up and relax. There should be set mechanism where everything should be monitored from time to time,” said SB Rao of Forum for Better Visakha (FBV).