Citation

Sharma R, Bakshi H, Banerjee A. Indian J. Community Med. 2020; 45(1): 104-105.

Affiliation

Department of Community Medicine, PDU Government Medical College, Rajkot, Gujarat, India.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2020, Indian Association of Preventive and Social Medicine, Publisher MedKnow)

DOI

10.4103/ijcm.IJCM_182_17

PMID

32029995

PMCID

PMC6985949

Abstract

Globally, every fifth fire-related death in 2017 took place in India.[1] Fire can occur to anyone, at anytime, and at anywhere including health-care facilities. Hospital fires can be devastating in terms of loss of life, injuries to patients/staff, and loss of property/equipment, more so because hospitals house a large number of vulnerable people (old/sick/disabled/pregnant/children, immunecompromised, on life support, and incapable of moving). People losing lives at the altar of cure, is a saddening tragedy leading to several health, economic, and social ramifications. In the recent past, several fire incidents have been reported all over the country, to name a few, at AIIMS – New Delhi, SAL Hospital – Ahmedabad, SMS Hospital – Jaipur, LNJP Hospital – Delhi, North Bengal Medical College and Hospital – Siliguri, Shine Children Hospital and Gandhi Hospital – Hyderabad, SSG Hospital – Vadodara (2019), ESIC Kamgar Hospital – Mumbai, Kakinada Government General Hospital (2018) – Andhra Pradesh, RML Hospital – Farrukhabad, BRD Medical College – Gorakhpur (2017), SSKM Hospital – Kolkata, Medical College Hospital – Murshidabad, GTB Hospital – Delhi, Guntur Government Hospital – Guntur, and SUM Hospital – Bhubaneswar (2016). Some of them involved considerable loss of human life (RML Hospital Farrukhabad and BRD Medical College, Gorakhpur)[2],[3] and therefore drew wide media attention.

Fire-related disasters in hospitals including near- to-miss events, human-made, or sequel to natural events, are more frequent than assumed and emerge from external or internal threats. External threat is exemplified by a bomb blast in Civil Hospital, Ahmedabad (2005). There were 21 simultaneous bomb blasts in the entire city within 70 min, followed by another bomb blast in the trauma center of Civil Hospital, timed in a way to cause bigger damage when the victims of earlier blasts arrived at the hospital. The affected people included two doctors and several volunteers who gathered to donate blood for the blast victims.[4] Internal threats account for most instances of fires, for example, the accidental fire in a corporation-run public hospital of Ahmedabad (2010),[5] where patients were trapped on the top floor. As the building was centrally air conditioned, there was no channel for the smoke to come out. It was tough even for firefighters to smash the glass windows to let the fumes out. According to some patients, there were no announcements on the public address system and also the staff abandoned them. It was observed that regular fire drills were not conducted and several fire extinguishers were past the expiry date.

Language: en