Fire safety is a must
On Friday evening Kashmir valley suffered a huge loss after the lone Bone and Joint Hospital in Barzulla area of Srinagar suffered extensive damage during a blaze. The hospital was the only orthopaedic tertiary care centre in Jammu and Kashmir.
What we have learnt through various news reports or official statements is that the fire broke out in the inpatient department of the hospital and spread rapidly engulfing the upper storeys of the hospital that was providing commendable services to the valley residents since 1980 when the hospital was inaugurated.
The healthcare facilities especially government run hospitals in Jammu and Kashmir are doing a yeoman service especially during the past three decades. The B&J hospital was one such institution that had to work over time during all these years as daily violent incidents taking place in Kashmir valley were mostly referred here.
The doctors and the medics here had stood the test of time and were providing the best of medical care to the trauma patient as well as those who suffered ailment related to bones.
The huge stress on hospitals here especially during the covid-19 situation that has been worrying us since the past three years had made us to realize the importance of healthcare institutions.
This realization had made the administration to think of ensuring various measures that could help the hospitals to avert any major tragedy which includes fire safety. For ensuring that such measures are taken that will ensure safety of the patients and the staff as well, the administration had directed hospital authorities to conduct and enhance fire safety in all hospitals.
Even several meetings were convened over the past one year where thrust was placed on ensuring fire safety audit of all hospitals not only in Kashmir but Jammu as well.
Though the issue of ensuring fire safety measures in hospitals was taken up by the Supreme Court last year as it even issued directions to all the states and UT’s to constitute a committee in each district to conduct fire audit of hospitals at least once a month. The committees were tasked to inform the management of medical establishment about any deficiency and report to the government for taking follow up action.
Fire safety in hospitals has been ignored over the years as the medical facilities have been under tremendous strain owing to the covid-19 outbreak. Besides, the stress the management of healthcare facilities was witnessing made them to act complacent which resulted in several loopholes.
The fact remains that some protocols that have to be followed while ensuring fire safety in hospitals have been ignored as last year the authorities were so much overstressed that they had no time to think about these facilities in the hospitals.
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 and booked for criminal negligence.
This will ensure that officials who are responsible for ensuring these measures do not take their job lightly as their negligence can prove deadly in case of a mishap. Thankfully we did not lose any life in yesterdays mishap but the loss the healthcare infrastructure suffered is too big.
Interestingly, the divisional administration in Jammu and Srinagar issued directions for ensuring fire safety norms in hospitals few months back but but the directions need strict follow-up as well so that all the measures are put in place that will ensure patient safety.
KV News
