Fire safety is a very vital component of risk management or patient safety management program in any hospital.
As such, the hospitals are more prone to fire hazard because of concentration of a lot of electrical equipment some of it working on high voltage, concentration of chemicals and gases being used, DG sets, Transformers, UPS, overloaded switches and sockets and loose temporary connections, the problem is further compounded because a sizable percentage of people inside the hospital are, partly or completely incapacitated, vulnerable and at the mercy of others.
The most dangerous aspect of fire hazard is that once it starts, it is difficult to control.
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It spreads very fast. In less than 30 seconds, a small flame can get completely out of control and within minutes, an entire house can be engulfed in flames.
There is only time to escape. Within minutes, the temperature can shoot up igniting everything in the room, spontaneously.
The thick black smoke can quickly engulf the room in complete darkness. It uses up all the oxygen and produces smoke and poisonous gases that kill more people than the flames do. The odorless, colorless fumes can lull people into a deep sleep before the flames even reach the door.
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In spite of the high probability of occurrence and high damage potential of fire, more often than not, the administrators in the hospitals are indifferent to the extent of danger that the patients or the staff are exposed to.
Most of the time, the hospitals do not have adequate fire preventive or fire-fighting equipment.
Whatever is there that is poorly maintained, especially in smaller hospitals/nursing homes where the management may be cutting corners to save money.
As such also an overriding priority is given to income-earning equipment/facility over the non income-earning facilities and therefore, investment in safety does not get the right priority.
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There is hardly any effort to even evaluate the extent and severity of danger in various areas of the hospital.
In the name of trained fire fighters, at best one may find an odd trained man who, after a while looses the enthusiasm and starts praying to GOD that nothing happens.
In the name of training, good hospitals may be able to produce volumes of records of training sessions held, only to be belied, once a while, whenever a real fire takes place.
No wonder that fire incidents (major or minor) keep happening and extracting a heavy price in terms of human lives as well as property.
The irony is that in spite of inadequate arrangement for fire safety, the organizations, somehow, keep getting the fire safety clearance from the Fire Safety Department, year after year.