Suhrawardy Hospital lacks basic fire-safety measures

Shaheed Suhrawardy Medical College and Hospital has no minimum fire safety measures, which hampered fire-dousing operations in Thursday's inferno.

To avert any possible event of fire, the state-run Bangladesh Fire Service and Civil Defense (FSCD) had warned the hospital authority on several occasions to improve the situation.

But it seemed to pay no heed to the alerts.

Even the hospital has no storage from which the firemen normally take water through the pipe to douse fire once it originates, according to the firefighters.

Hospital insiders said the government allocated around Tk 25 million from its development budget in the last fiscal year for the maintenance of electricity.

Talking to the FE, deputy assistant director (DAD) of the government fire-fighting agency Anwar Hossain, who was in the fire-dousing operations, said the hospital authority failed to show the source of water, which put them in serious difficulties.

As the fire kept engulfing, the firemen used the pond of the nearby Sher-e-Bangla Agricultural University to douse the fire, he said.

"We could have doused the fire within the shortest possible of time if there were water storage. The hospital has enough space but it did not feel the necessity for it," he said. "This is very unfortunate."

When contacted, director general (DG) of the fire-fighting agency Ali Ahmed Khan expressed his dissatisfaction over the fire-safety arrangements at the public hospital where nearly 1,200 people were receiving treatment during the incident.

He said they did not find automated fire signalling and alarm system, heat and smoke detectors with sprinklers, which automatically starts operating sensing the possibility of fire.

"It (hospital) was completely non-compliant with fire-safety measures. Thank God, none was hurt in the incident," he said.

The agency chief called upon the authorities of other hospitals and clinics to install enough firefighting equipment to avert any disaster in the days to come.

While visiting the fire-affected hospital, the FE correspondent found an additional establishment (a concrete room) in the corridor leading to the store room where the fire originated and burnt electric wire and healthcare kits inside the storage.

Seeking anonymity, a fireman at Mohammadpur fire station said the hospital authority built a concrete room blocking the corridor and stored medicine, injection materials and other forms of healthcare kits.

"You cannot build any obstacle to the corridor that should be free and open. Electric things like wire and switches should be outside the store room but we found these inside the room where fire-fueling materials like rubber and plastics were stored," he said.

The fireman also noted that they had warned the hospital authority several times in the past about fire dangers in the store room but nobody took it seriously.

Excepting a few ones, most of the public and private hospitals in the city lack fire safety measures, according to the state fire-fighting agency.

No hospital official was available for comments.

The incident raises question about fire safety in the country's public hospitals and the mushrooming private healthcare industry.

Health minister Zahid Malik said many hospitals in the country were built many years ago and lack enough equipment to deal with fire.

"We'll scrutinise fire-safety issues of the hospitals soon and will take measures to modernise the non-compliant ones," he said.

The minister also said that they have already formed a seven-member probe committee to investigate the incident and asked it to submit its findings within three days.

Meanwhile, normalcy returned to the hospital and it resumed healthcare services after hours of tensions over the fire incident.

Excepting two wards, the hospital authority resumed its services in other wards and many patients, who were shifted to other places, started coming back to the hospital.

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