{"id":105259,"date":"2021-05-07T09:12:14","date_gmt":"2021-05-07T03:42:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=105259"},"modified":"2021-05-07T21:25:39","modified_gmt":"2021-05-07T15:55:39","slug":"frequent-hospital-fires-during-covid-time-in-india-cause-and-way-forward","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/frequent-hospital-fires-during-covid-time-in-india-cause-and-way-forward\/","title":{"rendered":"Frequent Hospital Fires during COVID Time in India- Cause and Way forward"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>Synopsis \u2013 <\/strong>The hospital system in India has been overwhelmed by the heavy patient load and arrangement for the pandemic. It has increased their vulnerability to fire.<\/p>\n<h5><strong>Introduction<\/strong>&#8211;<\/h5>\n<ul>\n<li>Due to the COVID-19 Pandemic and mismanagement, the hospital system is becoming over stressed, resulting in frequent fire incidents.<\/li>\n<li>Since last August, more than 93 people have died in 24 hospital fire incidents in India. The majority of them were Covid-19 patients.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h5><strong>Major reason behind frequent hospital fire in India despite fire checks and audits-<\/strong><\/h5>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Electrical faults\u00a0are cited as the leading cause of fires \u2013 <\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Overheated ICU\u2019s and ACs-<\/strong> In most hospitals, to meet the current COVID-19 situation, medical equipment or wires are in use beyond their capacity. It is overheating the electrical wiring system, causing the fire.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Short circuit or overloading <\/strong>due to continuous running ACs in hospitals.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Mismanagement in hospital<\/strong> &#8211; Placing more ICU beds in limited space also makes it more vulnerable to fire spread.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Lack of cross-ventilation<\/strong> \u2013 Hospital ICUs (for COVID-19) are at significant fire risk because they remain sealed for the purpose of keeping them sterile.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Highly inflammable material in Hospitals- <\/strong>sanitizer spills and vapor, higher oxygen content in the air, and PPE kits made of synthetic materials all contribute to the rapid spread of fire.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h5><strong>What to do to reduce fire accidents in hospitals?<\/strong><\/h5>\n<ul>\n<li>All states need to carry out proper <strong>fire and electrical audits<\/strong> <strong>of dedicated COVID-19 hospitals<\/strong> in order to reduce the frequent cases.<\/li>\n<li>As the health sector expands to accommodate pandemic arrangements, it is essential that all new facilities and plans meet safety standards such as-\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Cross-ventilation in ICUs \u2013 <\/strong>There is a requirement of proper ventilation passage in ICUs to allow fumes an outlet.<\/li>\n<li>Keeping\u00a0electrical\u00a0equipment\u00a0for\u00a0ACs away\u00a0from\u00a0<strong>oxygen-saturated\u00a0areas<\/strong>\u00a0will reduce the risk.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Fire safety drills- <\/strong>Hospitals should mandatorily hold regular fire safety and evacuation drills.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Hospitals must install sprinklers<\/strong>, which start dispensing water [35 liters per minute] as the temperature increases above 78 \u00b0C.<\/li>\n<li><strong>There must be installation of fire extinguishers<\/strong> in temporary hospitals. A fire truck must also get stationed outside hospitals in the event of a major disaster.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Source- <\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/indianexpress.com\/article\/explained\/behind-frequent-hospital-fires-covid-patients-death-toll-7302274\/\"><strong>The Indian Express<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Synopsis \u2013 The hospital system in India has been overwhelmed by the heavy patient load and arrangement for the pandemic. It has increased their vulnerability to fire. Introduction&#8211; Due to the COVID-19 Pandemic and mismanagement, the hospital system is becoming over stressed, resulting in frequent fire incidents. Since last August, more than 93 people have&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/frequent-hospital-fires-during-covid-time-in-india-cause-and-way-forward\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Frequent Hospital Fires during COVID Time in India- Cause and Way forward<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":61,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1230,8043,9],"tags":[1668],"class_list":["post-105259","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-9-pm-daily-articles","category-current-affairs-cat","category-public","tag-disas_7","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105259","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/61"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=105259"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105259\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=105259"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=105259"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=105259"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}