Vadodara: Despite repeated checking drives and intimations by the department of fire and emergency services of the Vadodara Municipal Corporation (VMC), Covid-19 hospitals in the city are yet to get their act together.
Details provided by the fire brigade hint that only 34 of the 119 hospitals have a final no objection certificate (NOC) in place. The remaining have either provisional NOCs and other have either not applied for NOCs, some have not renewed them and the NOCs of others are pending.
Sources said that 56 hospitals had only provisional NOCs. They added that this does not mean that things were in order in these hospitals and only implied that the hospitals had put up a file for a NOC and the fire department was working on the matter.
According to an official, around 100 hospitals had never applied for NOCs. When this came to light the fire department took up the matter aggressively and issued notices. After this, the number has come down to 22 presently. Three hospitals including the GMERS Hospital, Gotri, had NOCs in order earlier but these have not been renewed.
The lacunae in the fire safety at hospitals had come to light much ahead of the visit by the fire safety team from the state government.
However, officials said that there was little they could do at this stage except issuing notices and pursuing the matter with the hospitals as they could not seal hospitals given the pandemic situation and patients kept there.
“We will inform the health department regarding the situation and seek their guidance,” said in-charge chief fire officer Parth Brahmbhatt. He added that the department was working to ensure that necessary steps were taken by hospitals for fire safety.