SUBHASH MISHRA
Dhanbad, Jan 30: The fire tragedy in RC Hazra Memorial Hospital Dhanbad in which a doctor couple and three others died, could have been avoided had all the stakeholders in the state followed the directive issued by the government from time to time.
In 2016, the then Chief Secretary (CS) Sudhir Tripathi had ordered a fire safety audit of all the hospitals, including private nursing homes and medical colleges hospitals and implemented the reports after the SUM Hospital Bhubaneswar (Odisha) fire incident in 2016 in which 20 patients died several injured.
Earlier in 2011, the then Chief Secretary had directed a fire safety audit of all the hospitals/ nursing homes of the state after the AMRI Hospital Kolkata fire incident in which 89 patients died and more than 100 were injured.
Again, the state government issued a similar order in 2021 when 10 patients were killed on March 26, 2021, in Covid Hospital, Mumbai fire incident.
Official sources said a fire safety audit was conducted whenever a directive was issued and a report was duly submitted but action was never taken to enforcing the hospitals to implement it.
The Dhanbad fire officer Laxman Prasad said that inspection of the fire safety of hospitals is being conducted in Dhanbad monthly on the directive of the headquarters.
Around 20 to 25 hospital inspection report is sent duly. He denied that fire NOC applications of hospitals are pending in the district department.
“Under the single window system online application is filed directly to the state headquarters and NOC is given from there,” he said.
However, Jharkhand IMA private Nursing Homes/Clinics Board chairman Dr RS Das of Ranchi has held complex clauses of the Clinical Establishment Act (CEA) in Jharkhand responsible for non-implementing fire safety norms in clinics and nursing homes.
“Under the CE Act, it is beyond the capacity of nursing homes/clinics to equip all the fire safety guidelines. Some states in the country have not implemented the CE Act while some have adopted it after some amendments. The Jharkhand government has implemented without considering impractical clauses resulting doctors and patients both have perished in it,” said Dr RS Das.
The private hospital board chairman said that clinic owners doctors and nursing home operators are not against implementing fire safety guidelines of the CE Act provided it is made practical.
He pointed out that if a doctor opens a clinic in a multi-storey building, as per CE Act he would have to take NOC for the entire building, which is beyond the capacity of a clinic owner doctor.
“IMA has been demanding for long to exempt below 50 beds clinics/nursing homes from CE Act as Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and other state governments have done for streamlining health services. But the government has been sitting on a proposal,” said Dr Das.
