Vadodara: SSG to have fire station on campus

Vadodara’s SSG hospital has become the first government hospital in Gujarat to have a fire station facility available inside the hospital for emergency response.

SSG Hospital, which has been running from its premises an Ambulance Service Centre by Arvindrai Vaishnav Charitable Trust for the last 22 years, will now have a Fire Service and Ambulance Service Centre on campus to increase the speed of response to fires — the hospital witnessed a fire inside the Covid-19 ICU in September last year but patients were evacuated in the nick of time.

The trust, run by the family of Arvindrai Vaishnav — the first Chief of Vadodara Fire Brigade — has decided to donate the space for a full-fledged fire station inside the hospital campus. The building was inaugurated in 1999.

In a ceremony on Saturday, attended by Vadodara Mayor Keyur Rokadia, SSG Medical Superintendent Dr Ranjan Aiyer as well as Maulin Vaishnav of Vaishnav Charitable Trust and Arvindrai Vaishnav’s son, the trust donated the fire tender to the hospital.

Kirat Vaishnav, the managing trustee, said that in view of the fires that broke out in several hospitals during the Covid19 epidemic across the state, some of which saw patients losing their lives, the Vaishnav Charitable Trust has donated the land to the hospital, including the building of the ambulance centre.