Fire safety operations fall under municipalities, a tier of governance whose weaknesses have multiplied in recent times.
Dec 6, 2024 04:20 IST First published on: Dec 6, 2024 at 04:20 IST
Hospitals have a complex environment with vulnerable patients, hazardous materials and sensitive equipment. That’s why the National Building Code has devoted an extensive chapter to fire safety in hospitals. The National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) also has guidelines to fireproof medical centres. However, outbreak after outbreak has exposed the poor condition in the country’s healthcare facilities in terms of fire safety. From the inferno that snuffed out more than 90 lives at Kolkata’s AMRI hospital in 2011 to last month’s blaze that killed 18 newborns at a Jhansi hospital, investigations into fire tragedies have zeroed on to virtually the same incriminating factors — poorly designed safety exits, neglect of electricity load audits, irrational use of oxygen and failure to adhere to protocols on storing combustible materials. Yet, scarcely any lesson seems to have been learnt. Even more appallingly, as an analysis in this newspaper shows, accountability for the outbreaks is rarely fixed. Since 2020, at least 11 major hospital fires have claimed more than 100 lives. In all but one of these cases, hospital owners or heads are out on bail.
This newspaper’s analysis shows that short circuits were the primary cause of most of the outbreaks. A growing body of scholarship on electricity planning for healthcare facilities seems to have gone unnoticed by hospital administrators. Studies, for instance, have estimated that the electricity load of a healthcare facility goes up nearly 25 per cent a year after its commissioning. This could be addressed by budgeting for a buffer on the initial power load. The NDMA guidelines also underline the need for periodic recalibration of the electrical load of healthcare facilities. However, hospital authorities frequently cut corners. They also give a short shift to NDMA’s directions to install fire alarms and sprinklers.
Fire safety operations fall under municipalities, a tier of governance whose weaknesses have multiplied in recent times. Inspections are weak and, at best, once-in-a-few-years exercises. Local government agencies are not just guilty of omission. The Justice D A Mehta committee which investigated fires in two Gujarat hospitals during the Covid pandemic concluded that fatalities could have been prevented had the authorities not regularised illegal structures. It called for “a serious relook at the policy of regularisation of unauthorised construction… specifically in the case of nursing homes and hospitals”. Unfortunately, such words of caution frequently go unheeded.
