Jaipur: It was around 11:45 p.m. when Alludin was sipping a cup of tea at Sawai Man Singh (SMS) Hospital after an exhausting day that he heard someone shouting, “Fire! Fire!”
He threw down the cup and ran upstairs towards the state-run hospital’s ICU, where his teenage son was admitted. The fire broke out in the neuro trauma centre ICU’s storage room on the second floor late Sunday night and soon engulfed the entire floor, leaving at least six people dead. Five people were injured.
According to Dr Anurag Dhakad, the trauma centre’s in-charge, 11 patients were being treated in the ICU and another 13 were admitted to the adjoining ward at Jaipur’s biggest government hospital.
“As I ran up, people came out to help, and we managed to get my son out of the ICU with their help,” said Aluddin.
The blaze has put the spotlight on fire preparedness and safety standards at government facilities in Rajasthan. It has also exposed glaring lapses in the hospital’s fire safety systems despite a similar fire six years ago: malfunctioning fire safety equipment, no mock drills in a decade and inadequate fire safety staff.
The cause of the fire isn’t known, but police suspect it was a short circuit. The government has asked a six-member committee to investigate the incident and submit its report at the earliest.
As authorities probe into the fire, some hospital staff told ThePrint that fire safety equipment on the floor did not function at the time of the fire.
“The fire alarm system failed; it did not ring at all. It was the huge plumes of smoke and fire waves that drew the attention of people towards the fire,” said a hospital staff member who helped a patient get out of the building.
Eyewitnesses say that hospital staff didn’t take the matter seriously when they were told about the smoke initially. Later, as the flames spread, the fire brigade was called in—but by the time it arrived, it was already too late.
When the fire department arrived at the hospital, the whole floor was filled with smoke and blocking all access. “We had to break windowpanes from the opposite side of the building and spray water jets inside,” a fire brigade worker told ThePrint.
He added that it took nearly one-and-a-half hours to douse the flames.
Witnesses said as the blaze engulfed the floor, patients were evacuated along with their beds and shifted to the roadside.
“I was there. I was helping the patients get out of the smoke. Very few hospital staff members were there. It was the people and attendees who helped each other. The system here is very slow and corrupted,” complained Atul Kumar, whose brother was admitted to the ICU.
There was only one person from the fire team who also came after the fire. “That person works from 8 in the morning to 8 in the evening and earns Rs 6,000 a month. You cannot expect someone earning so little to be there round-the-clock,” said the hospital staff member cited above.
Most of the staff of the hospital are on contract working for a third party.
Many staff members said the hospital hadn’t conducted a single mock fire drill in the past 10 years.
Not even after a fire erupted in the hospital’s main building six years ago. “No one died that time, but we shifted 125 patients to different floors. The fire started from the ground floor but reached the first floor. A total of 12 fire tenders came to stop the fire, and that was also because of a short circuit,” said Dr Mohit Meena, who used to study in the hospital in 2019.
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Judicial attention
The government has suspended the hospital superintendent, and the trauma centre superintendent executive engineer. And it has cancelled the contract of S.K.Electric Company, the private agency responsible for fire safety at the hospital, and directed police to register an FIR against it.
Two days after Sunday’s fire, the ICU remains sealed as a forensic team investigates the cause. Police are keeping a strict vigil. The rest of the hospital, including other ICUs, is functioning at full capacity.
Rajasthan Chief Minister Bhajan Lal Sharma visited the hospital late at night at around 3 a.m. to review the situation and directed officials to take strict action against those responsible.
Health Minister Gajendra Singh Khimsar, who visited the trauma centre to inspect the site of the fire, called the incident “extremely tragic”.
He offered condolences to the families of the six people who lost their lives. The government has announced a compensation of Rs 10 lakh each to the dependents of the deceased.
The minister also said that the Medical Education Department had, in June, directed the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) to prepare a detailed report to improve fire safety and other security measures at SMS Hospital and its associated facilities.
“We expect to receive that report soon. In the first phase, security systems at SMS Hospital and affiliated hospitals will be strengthened, followed by similar measures across the state,” he said.
The hospital fire also drew judicial attention.
The Rajasthan High Court, while hearing a suo motu petition on a Jhalawar school collapse some months ago, made oral remarks on the SMS Hospital trauma centre fire, questioning the infrastructure of government buildings.
“What is happening in this government building? Fires are breaking out somewhere, and roofs are collapsing somewhere else,” said the bench of Justices Mahendra Goel and Ashok Jain.
The court noted that the SMS trauma centre was a newly built facility, yet such an accident had taken place there.
Jaipur Police Commissioner Biju George Joseph said that the exact cause of the fire would be confirmed only after an investigation by the Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL) team.
“At first glance, it appears to be a short circuit, but the final cause will only be determined after the FSL investigation,” he said. “Once everything is done, the post-mortem of the bodies will be conducted.”
(Edited by Sugita Katyal)
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