Fire audit of hospitals
Thought the issue of ensuring fire safety measures in hospitals is of utmost importance it was the apex court that had to issue directions to all the states and UT’s to constitute a committee in each district to conduct fire audit of COVID-19 hospitals at least once a month. The committees have been tasked to inform the management of medical establishment about any deficiency and report to the government for taking follow up action.
Fire safety in Covid and other hospitals has been ignored over the years as the medical facilities including the management has been under tremendous strain owing to the covid-19 outbreak and the stress the healthcare facilities were dealing with.
The fact remains that most of the protocols that have to be followed while ensuring fire safety in hospitals have been ignored during the past few years and last year the authorities were so much overstressed that they had no time to think about this facility in the hospitals.
The rush and footfall in the hospitals increased so tremendously that the administration in many case did not even get the no objection certificates from the fire departments as well. That being the reason that the apex court also directed the officials to get the pending NOC’s immediately after getting the necessary inspection done by the fire service officials.
The directions by the court followed after it took cognisance of the fire incident at a COVID hospital in Gujarat’s Rajkot in which five patients had died. It had also taken note of similar incidents which had happened earlier in other COVID hospitals.
Ensuring that all hospitals are made to follow the protocols to ensure fire safety rules are being adhered to, the administration should direct all the officials in the health sector to update their respective local building bye laws/fire services and synchronise all the hospital buildings in line of Model Bill on maintenance of fire and emergency service, 2019′. For this the Ministry of Home Affairs has issued a detailed circular on September 16 last year.
While the fire safety norms have been flouted in most of the hospital buildings in Jammu and Kashmir, the fact remains that ignoring the safety measures can prove to be a costly affair in case of any mishap.
This stands true for both Jammu and Kashmir divisions where authorities need to wake up and get all the necessary rules and regulations in place and ensure that all the measures required for ensuring fire safety are not only followed but those violating them be booked under criminal negligence.
This will ensure that officials who are responsible for ensuring these measures do not take their job lightly and their negligence can prove deadly in case of a mishap. The apex courts directions have come at a right time and now it is for the authorities to follow it up seriously.
The first thing that the authorities can do is to carry out a survey to find out lacunas and get them rectified well in time.
KV Network
