20210328 One dead in fire at Kanpur hospital due to short-circuit
India Mar 28 2021 “Building” “Hospitals”
Dead : dead 1 to 4 Burnout : 1 to 29 Injured : injured 0 or unknown
One dead in fire at Kanpur hospital due to short-circuit
Updated: 2021-03-28
KANPUR: An elderly patient was killed after a major fire broke out at Laxmipat Singhania Institute of Cardiology in Kanpur on Saturday morning.
“The deceases was on a ventilator. He died at around 9.30am,” hospital officials said.
The power supply was snapped. Patients and their attendants were brought out from stairs and through windows.
The fire started at the emergency ward on the first floor at around 8am.
Around nine fire tenders were pressed into service to douse the flames.
Senior officials, including police commissioner Asim Arun, district magistrate Alok Tiwari, besides SP (West) Anil Kumar, rushed to the spot and supervised the rescue operation.
Chief minister Yogi Adityanath has taken cognizance of the incident.
He has directed the authorities to provide immediate care to all the evacuated patients.
More than 140 patients were in the emergency ward and the first floor of the hospital.
“Four patients, including a jail inmate, have been shifted to different hospitals in the city. The emergency ward on the ground floor has been completely evacuated. Nearly 10 ambulances were roped in to transport the patients to other health institutions,” said Kumar.
Director General, Fire, RK Vishwakarma, who reached the spot with a team to conduct a probe of fire in the cardiology unit told TOI that the fire was caused due to a short-circuit in the store room of the hospital which is on the ground-floor. Bedsheets, cotton, bandages are inflammable which caught fire.
“Thereafter the flames and smoke reached the third floor of the hospital but timely action saved the lives of 120 patients admitted in the hospital,” he said.
Vishwakarma also said that the hospital was carved out from a building as old as 1975. “It initially had a capacity of 40 patients which was increased to 150 beds, there was no space,” he added.
He also said that the fire was reported around 7.45 am, and routinely fire safety audits were done of the hospital.
The DG also said that in a similar manner fire was caused in KGMU hospital of Lucknow in 2018. “Store rooms should never be constructed near the emergencies where surgeries are performed,” he added.
Kanpur Police Commissioner, Asim Arun , told TOI that all the patients were shifted safely to other nearby hospitals. (Additional reporting by Pathikrit Chakraborty)
Web Source: The Times of India