Fire at Sambhunath Pandit Hospital

A fire broke out in the library conference room in Sambhunath Pandit Hospital Monday afternoon. However, there was no report of anyone getting injured in the fire. The health services in the outpatient department had stalled for a few hours due to the fire, but it was restored shortly.

Five fire tenders were pressed into service and fire-fighters took a few hours to douse the flames. According to an officer of the state Fire and Emergency Services department, the exact reason of the fire is yet to be ascertained, but preliminary investigation suggest that electric short circuit in an air-conditioning machine could have led to the incident.

The fire, which comes a couple of days after a similar incident in the Murshidabad Medical College and Hospital, caused panic among the patients here. Employees in the library conference room were rescued and were taken to a safe place. The power supply had to be stopped and employees of the hospital also joined the fire-fighters to extinguishing the flames. Policemen from the local police station rushed to spot and kept the situation under control. Taking lessons from the Murshidabad incident, the police didn’t allow people to spread unnecessary panic as it could have led to stampede.

Relatives and family members of patients were assured that the situation was under control and there was no need to run for safe haven as fire fighters had reached the spot in the shortest time possible and extinguished the fire before it could have spread further.