THE Health Department has formed two inquiry panels to ascertain the circumstances leading to the horrible fire incident at the District Women’s Hospital in Amravati which lead to deaths of three newborn babies. Meanwhile, the condition of all the remaining 36 newborns admitted to the hospital is stable, informed District Civil Surgeon Dr Vinod Pawar. The first inquiry panel will be headed by Sanjay Katkar, Health Department Commissioner, while the second will be headed by Sunita Golait, Health Department Joint Director. Dr Sunita, Golait has already arrived in Amravati and has begun investigation. Soon after reaching the hospital, Dr Golait held a meeting with Dr Vinod Pawar, District Civil Surgeon, and other senior medical officers. The committee is examining several crucial issues, including alleged ventilator explosion, pending fire safety audit of the hospital, the correspondence and follow-up with the Public Works Department (PWD), and the circumstances prevailing at the time of the incident.

 

The hospital’s fire audit had reportedly expired on August 21. The hospital administration has maintained that correspondence with the PWD regarding the fire audit had been initiated in June and that follow-up was being carried out. The inquiry committee is expected to examine records, safety measures and the sequence of events leading up to the fire before arriving at its conclusions. The findings of the inquiry will be crucial in determining whether there were any lapses or negligence and whether responsibility needs to be fixed on officers, agencies or contractors. Attention is now focused on the committee’s report and the action that may follow. The incident has also raised questions over the fire safety audit of the hospital.

 

According to Dr Vinod Pawar, the validity of the hospital’s fire audit expired on August 21. However, he clarified that the hospital administration had written to the Public Works Department (PWD) in June regarding the matter and had been in regular communication with the department. Dr Pawar said the exact cause of the incident and other related aspects would become clear only after the inquiry committees submit their findings. Meanwhile, the Public Works Department (PWD) clarified that the fire audit process at the Hospital was already underway when the blaze broke out in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU), amid questions over the alleged delay in conducting the audit. Sagar Shende, PWD Executive Engineer, said that a work order for the fire audit had been issued to AFS Amravati Fire Services on June 30. According to Shende, the audit process included inspection of fire extinguishers, the sprinkler system, fire alarm system and the condition of the pump house.

 

The contractor had inspected the hospital’s fire safety systems last week, he said. He said the next step was to obtain signatures from the department concerned and submit the fire audit form to the Fire Department. The process was scheduled to be completed this week. He further said that the health of the fire safety systems at the hospital was being checked regularly and that the systems were operational in both automatic and manual modes. A mock drill was also conducted by the Fire Department around June 24, Shende informed. According to him, no major fire safety lapse was reported to the PWD during the exercise. The PWD Executive Engineer maintained that the Department had been carrying out regular checks of the fire safety systems and that the formal fire audit process was in progress when the tragic incident took place. With two panels now conducting separate inquiries, the focus is on determining the exact sequence of events, the cause of the fire and whether there were any lapses in fire safety measures at the hospital.