In emergency: Hospitals lack training to deal with fires

Fires break out at two public hospitals in as many days.

LAHORE: Public hospitals in the province do not have repair and maintenance (R&M) departments which, experts say, should be set up to deal with untoward incidents and cut the damage caused from these.

Fires broke out at two hospitals in the city over the last two days. The Emergency Department of Sir Ganga Ram Hospital caught fire on Sunday a day after a fire erupted in Emergency Department of the Punjab Institute of Cardiology.

Patients at both hospitals had to be evacuated.

Sir Ganga Ram Hospital Medical Superintendent Umer Farooq said the fire had erupted due to an electric short circuit on the upper floor of Emergency Department. He said no casualties were reported. The patients were moved to other wards.



Twelve fire incidents have been reported at public hospitals since 2012. Young Doctors’ Association president Salman Kazmi said the government should set up R&M departments at all hospitals.

“In 2012, six babies were burnt in a fire that erupted in the nursery of Services Hospital. Several fires have broken out at hospitals since then,” Kazmi told The Express Tribune.

He said a committee was formed each time a fire erupted at a hospital.

“Old electricity wires catch fire due to short circuiting and there are no arrangements to repair or replace them. Hospital authorities take too long to replace as much as a bulb,” he said.

Advocate Noshab Khan had filed a petition in Lahore High Court requesting a judicial inquiry of the fire at Services Hospital.

“The last hearing took place two months ago. The government was asked to submit its reply in two weeks,” he said.

“I maintained in my petition that staff at hospitals do not know how to use fire extinguishers. In the case of Services Hospital, fire extinguishers were available but they were not used because the staff was not conversant in their use.”

Adviser to Chief Minister on Health Khwaja Salman Rafique said Sir Ganga Ram Hospital’s Emergency Department would be operational on Monday (today). He said the district coordination officer would launch an inquiry.

He said he would ask the medical superintendents to submit a report each about electrical wiring in hospitals.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 14^th, 2014.