Rajkot: A day after five Covid patients were killed in the fire that engulfed the ICU of Uday Shivanad hospital on Mavdi Road on Wednesday midnight,
additional chief secretary A K Rakesh, who has been entrusted with the inquiry into the incident conducted an on-the-spot survey of the hospital on Saturday.
Rakesh also held various meetings with police officers and municipal corporation officials in the circuit house and is expected to suggest several changes in the fire safety norms of Covid hospitals in the state.
Talking to TOI, Rakesh said, “Generally all hospitals are equipped to fight fire exigencies. However, in case of Covid hospitals, what makes it even riskier here is the much higher use of oxygen, looking at the nature of the disease. Hence, oxygen being highly inflammable,once there is an electrical spark and the oxygen pipelines catch fire, it spreads very rapidly making it immensely difficult to control spread. We need to have some ultra modern facility where the moment temperature goes beyond a particular limit, it should start on its own without any human intervention. I am going to suggest this in my report.”
Elaborating on his visit and about the statement of the hospital administration, the officer said, “The response was pretty quick, required permission is in place including fire NOC. They (hospital authorities) were using less load than then the power connection they had taken.”
Uday Shivanand hospital is using nearly 10 ventilators including Dhaman-1. The other vantiltors under operation were manufactured by BHEL, Hamilton and Purtan Bennett 840.
Altogether 24 private hospitals and the civil hospital is treating Covid-19 patients. According to the figures of Rajkot Municipal Corporation (RMC), 37 people are on ventilators and 208 on oxygen support as on Saturday.
Vice president of Gujarat Pradesh Congress Committee, Dr Hemang Vasavda said, “We are suggesting the government to make new guidelines of fire safety for Covid hospitals. The equipment in Covid ICU functions non-stop for 24 hours and also carries a high dose of oxygen level. So the machinery needs to be rested periodically. For that, there should be surplus machinery in the ICU. The electric connection and wiring too should be strong.”