After five major fires and over 55 deaths in hospitals during the ongoing pandemic, the Maharashtra government on Monday issued guidelines on fire prevention measures. The government resolution was issued by the Public Health Department under secretary Roshani Kadam-Patil.
As per the guidelines, the installation of fire extinguishers and their refilling in hospitals under the jurisdiction of Public Health Department would be mandatory and they should be installed in places from where they can be easily removed and used during fire.
After the receipt of the fire audit report, these hospitals will have to install fire extinguishing gadgets, provide quarterly training to all employees by conducting mock drills and all exit doors and routes should be vacant and without any material. The participation of officers from the fire brigade and the disaster management are mandatory during mock drills.
It would be mandatory for the hospitals to boldly display at the entrance information with regard to manpower of fire brigade, trained personnel and disaster management cell. Further, the hospitals will also have to display that the lifts should not be used in the wake of fire.
The government’s guidelines are important as the probe into the fires revealed that hospitals lacked robust fire fighting systems and in some cases it was found that the personnel were not trained for its timely and proper usage. Further, it was also revealed that most of the hospitals had not done periodical fire and safety audits while some of them after that had failed to upgrade and strengthen the firefighting system.
Further, a senior Public Health Department officer said that the hospital upgrade has been delayed in some cases due to timely intervention by the Public Work Department. ‘’The Public Health Department as well as the hospital administration have to repeatedly pursue the matter with the PWD. It takes time,’’ he noted.
