Centre directs hospitals to develop fire safety action plans

The Centre today directed hospitals to develop fire safety action plans and conduct quarterly fire drills while emphasising the need for training of doctors and nurses to help them undertake assessments of such emerging risks.
With a fire incident killing over 20 people in a hospital in Odisha last year, Union Health Minister J P Nadda directed the hospitals to undertake quarterly fire drills so that the hospital staff is sensitised and is aware of their responsibility while asking them to conduct fire audits regularly which will be monitored by the Ministry.
"The Minster emphasised the need for training and capacity building among the hospital staff especially doctors, nurses and attendants so that they can undertake routine assessments of emerging risks, including those arising due to alterations and also conduct audits through internal technical staff.

"Nadda also directed the officials of the participating hospitals to develop time bound fire safety action plan of the building or block of their hospital. He further instructed them to undertake quarterly fire drills so that the hospital staff is sensitised and is aware of their responsibility. He also asked the participants to conduct fire audits regularly which will be monitored by the Ministry," an official statement said.
He was speaking a national workshop on 'Life and Fire Safety in Health care Facilities in India' jointly organised by Health Ministry and AIIMS New Delhi with active participation of School of Planning and Architecture in New Delhi, Delhi Fire Services, National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), New Delhi and Central Building Research Institute (CBRI), Roorkee.

"We have to aim to ensure 'zero tolerance' with regard to risk of fire. With this aim in the focus, we have to align all our efforts and converge to achieve this goal," Nadda said.

Nadda said that the dos and don'ts must be understood
first and should be strictly followed and there is a need to make make sure that it goes down to every level.
The Union Health Minister further said that doctors and engineering staff should be fully aware of their role towards fire and life safety.
"Our nurses and doctors are the first responders in such an eventuality. In fact, doctors and nurses would provide the guidance and support if patients are to be moved and where they have to be moved considering the condition of patients," he said.

Laying stress on having safe evacuation during emergencies, Nadda said that it has been noticed that corridors, staircases are not properly maintained to provide safe egress while sometimes emergency doors are locked even when patients are in a position to move out.
"This is fundamental but often ignored, due to security reasons. Hospital administrations should resolve this problem in consultation with security experts.
"Please ensure that access and egress is not compromised and proper fire escape routes and measures are in place especially in operation theatres and ICUs so that patients inside these rooms can be evacuated properly during emergencies," he said.

The main objective of the workshop was to sensitise the hospital administrators and engineering heads about important issues related to life and fire safety in health care buildings.
The workshop was attended by heads of 23 hospitals and institutes under the Health Ministry. A mock drill was also conducted in the premises of AIIMS in New Delhi.
In the workshop the participants got a comprehensive understanding of the scope of life and fire safety in health care buildings in terms of best practices as well as applicable codes and standards by participants.