FIRE INCIDENT IN A HOSPITAL
ANIL PURI CMD, APS GROUP A thought leader and an action catalyzer rolled into one – Anil Puri is a rare combination of a visionary, and one who has mastered the art of strategic and tactical thinking to the core. He has been using this combination to seed new ideas and to lead them to their implementation onground. This has been a consistent feature of his career. He has rich experience of approximately 35 years in corporate in diverse domains & from functional managerial level to apex as chairman of a corporate group. His acumen for handling crisis management has prompted him to share his exclusive and niche experiences. Here he will be discussing the topic of Disaster Management which has been one of his favorite subjects. In the series of the articles on Disaster Management, the fire incident of Dec 2011 in AMRI Hospital, Kolkatta has been picked up as a classical case to drive home the key and essential issues. INTRODUCTION Socio-economic variables depict a high concentration of population in the cities in terms of density per house. Kolkata has the highest number of persons per household (11 person/ household) (IRAD Report, 2013) which renders it in most vulnerable situation due to this kind of fire outbreak. Advanced Medicare and Research Institute (AMRI) is a private hospital chain jointly promoted by the R. S. Goenka led Emami Group, the S. K. Todi led Shrachi Group of companies, and State Government of West Bengal in 1996. The hospital chain has its head office and 6 branches in Kolkata, West Bengal, India, and 6 branches in Bangladesh. AMRI Hospital is ISO 9001:2000 certified, and is located in a densely populated area of at Dhakuria in South Kolkata. SEQUENCE OF EVENTS I n the early hours of the morning on December 9, 2011, a massive fire broke out at annex building of AMRI Hospital Dhakuria, Kolkata. The fire was first noticed by local residents at around 2.30 am. Fire Control Room, Kolkata was informed about the incident at 4.10 am which responded immediately and the fire services arrived at the site within 20 min. Though the fire was primarily restricted within the basement of the hospital, but the poisonous smoke was sucked by air conditioning ducts that carried it through the rooms and the corridors of the seven-story centrally air conditioned hospital. Entire hospital building was filled with thick pile of smoke, caused tremendous suffocation for all the indoor patients. Ninety people choked to death, many of them are in their sleep or were not in condition to even escape. Among the list of dead persons, there were nationals from other countries and states within India. There were victims from Bangladesh, Bihar, Tripura and two nurses from Kerala. As reported by the media, local people noticed the fire at hospital building around 2.30 am and tried to enter the hospital building for rescue. The relatives of the patients, who were waiting outside the hospital overnight also tried to help the trapped patients inside the hospital. The security staff of the hospital stopped the entry in mass into the AMRI annex building, and tried to douse the fire with their own available resources. Fire department rushed into action after receiving the dis-tress call at 4.10 am and reached the spot with available sophisticated firefighting equipment. Around 25 fire engines and hydraulic ladders were used for the rescue and dousing of the massive fire and smoke. It was reported by the Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime) that none of the smoke alarms got activated even when smoke started billowing out of the basement. It seems that they had been in switched off mode because they would go off at the slightest smoke and disturb the patients. The sprinklers, gas jets and other water re-leasing equipment that are meant to fight fire, were defunct and none of them went off to prevent the fire. Un-official reports are such that the basement was being used as a smokers’ corner, keeping the fire alarms in switch off mode. This was the second fire at AMRI hospital in three years. The fire services department, government of west Bengal had warned AMRI Hospital in September, 2011 about the inappropriate and dangerous use of the hospital basement. It had served a notice to the hospital authorities questioning the fact that instead of parking cars, the hospital was using its basement for storing empty and filled up LPG cylinders, torn mattresses, and wooden boxes and had converted the entire space into a storehouse. With a December 5 deadline, the hospital was allowed three months’ time to comply, but it did not. The enforcement of law is also in question. CAUSES OF FIRE INCIDENT Though the specific cause of fire could not be established, the director of the fire department in his opinion stated that the fire was most likely caused due to an electrical short circuit in the basement car park. The combustible items like empty and filled up LPG cylinders, PVC pipes, rejected mattresses and wooden boxes immediately got the flame. However, the fact is that the fire didn’t spread to the other part or level of the hospital and was confined to the basement only. As the hospital was centrally air-conditioned, the smoke started billowing out of the basement and spread fast to all the floors through the air-conditioning duct. Soon thereafter, the air-conditioners went off because of the power cut and smoke started accumulating into the hospital rooms and corridors. The centrally air-conditioned hospital didn’t have windows and glass façade walls. As a result, smoke could not be ventilated outside the building. A critical component like mechanical ventilation of centrally air-conditioned buildings was missing in the hospital building. The fire brigade later broke open the glass facade to help the gas escape, though same was too late. ROOT CAUSE ANALYSIS The basement was full with inflammable articles like paper, cotton, mattress, chemicals which amounted to blatant violation of fire safety practices. Smoke detector and fire…