Cuttack: None of the 85 buildings of SCB Medical College and Hospital (SCB MCH) in Cuttack city have any fire exit during emergencies.
While the authorities claimed that the ramps in two buildings, G+2 surgery and G+5 trauma care, are the fire exit routes, there are no signages indicating that the ramps function as fire exits. The ramp in the surgery department is also not connected to second floor, said a report published in TNIE.
The recent fire incident at the trauma care ICU, which claimed lives of 12 patients, has exposed the utter negligence in fire safety measures at the State’s premier government-run hospital.
Although the works for installation of fire-fighting systems like alarms, smoke detectors, sprinklers and hydrants is going on for the last two years following the Orissa High Court’s directions, not a single building has a dedicated fire exit, which is mandatory in hospitals under the National Building Code (NBC), the report said.
As per the rules, the fire exit routes must remain unobstructed and be clearly marked (bi-lingual). The 2,086-bed medical college and hospital has 27 clinical establishments of 34 different departments and a dedicated wing for 15 super special departments, a casualty and trauma care centre, offices and diagnosis units which are presently functioning from 85 buildings. The hospital mostly remains over-crowded with around 3,000 indoor patients.
Further, as per the guidelines, it is mandatory for appointment of a dedicated fire safety officer for all hospitals to monitor fire prevention systems. But, the SCB MCH does not have the post of a fire safety officer or supervisor.
Sources said that the Fire Services department had conducted an inspection of the fire safety measures in the hospital as recently as March 11 and reported the lapses to the senior officials, but no steps were taken by them to address the issues.
Meanwhile, after the State government appointed six-member fact finding committee conducted inquiry for the second time on Friday, the hospital superintendent Gautam Satpathy has issued an order declaring additional medical superintendent of SCB Dr Jyotirmaya Nayak as nodal officer of fire safety.
A retired professor and former superintendent of SCB said, “Electrical short circuit is a major cause of fire in hospitals, mainly due to overloading or neglected maintenance. Simply declaring a doctor as a nodal officer of fire safety will never serve the purpose as he will remain busy in performing his clinical duties. Instead of posting a dedicated fire safety officer and strengthening the infrastructure, the hospital authorities seem to have taken an easy way out by declaring a doctor as nodal officer for fire safety.”
Efforts to elicit response from the officials of SCB MCH on the issue, however, proved futile.
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