Officials part of the hospital managements whom DT Next spoke to said they are conscious of the criticality of fire safety and that they are also aware of the rules and regulations in this regard. But the State Health Department is awaiting a committee to oversee fire safety measures at private hospitals.

Exposing the chinks, an inspection of 200 government, corporate and smaller private hospitals; nursing homes, clinical establishments and other healthcare institutions revealed that more than half of the private hospitals do not have fire licence even now. After a Statewide survey in 2018, more than 200 hospitals in Tamil Nadu were found lacking fire safety measures. Within two years, several government hospitals installed fire safety facilities, including sprinklers, fire extinguishers, ramps, and others.

“Government hospitals and some of the private hospitals in the State took up infrastructural developments after an order by the Madras High Court. The Health Department had provided funds to undertake this. However, there still are medical college hospitals and private hospitals that violate fire safety protocol and are functioning without a licence,” Jawaharlal Shanmugam, an activist based in Chennai who has been pursuing the matter for a long time.

According to officials from the Directorate of Medical and Rural Health Services, private hospitals have been instructed to comply with the rules and are granted a licence only after reviewing fire safety compliance. However, the existing private hospitals do not have fire safety approvals and compliance is not reviewed by any authority.

“There are fire safety audits and training is being given to the staff members regularly in coordination with the Fire and Rescue Services. The fire drill is being organised every year and private hospitals seeking licences are being evaluated for compliance,” said Dr S Gurunathan, Director of Medical and Rural Health Services.

However, sources admitted that though instructions were given to the government and private hospitals about two years ago, there has not been any review to find out if they were complying with the rules.

After the fire that killed COVID patients at a hospital in Rajkot, Gujarat, the Supreme Court had taken up the matter suo motu and issued three directions: appoint nodal officers in COVID hospitals, a government committee to carry out fire audit in COVID hospitals and mandatory no-objection certificate from the Fire Department COVID Hospitals, noted a senior Fire and Rescue Services officer.

“The Fire and Rescue Services is only an advisory agency that is only empowered to issue fire licences when an application is submitted. It is not competent to take penal action against healthcare institutions that function without licences or those who violate the conditions of the licence,” the officer added.

As per the National Building Code of India, hospitals and nursing homes come under the category of institutional buildings. Various fire safety measures have been mandated according to the type, height and area of the building. The conditions include appointing a qualified fire officer, conducting fire and safety audit, fulfilling assets and facility management needs and organising fire drills regularly. But these are conspicuous by their absence at many COVID hospitals in the State, sources said.

“COVID patients, especially those in ICU, are not capable of moving in an emergency. Therefore, COVID care facilities should be designed, constructed, maintained and operated in such a way to completely prevent the possibility of the fire accident. The provisions of detection, alarm, and fire extinguishment should be ensured, and proper staffing and their training should be done on priority. Hospital managements should realise that the deaths of COVID patients could have catastrophically overwhelming consequences. In the present context of spiralling cases, COVID hospitals would do well to keep a robust firefighting system in place in their own interest,” the officer added.