Medical colleges and hosps & CMoHs told to form hospital-level fire safety committees

kolkata: The state Health department has directed all the principals of medical college and hospitals and also the chief medical officer of health (CMoH) in the districts to form hospital level fire safety committees to install proper fire safety mechanisms.

The department has issued an order on Monday saying that this committee will meet fortnightly and conduct a joint inspection to take all necessary steps to fulfill fire safety norms. All the district hospitals, medical colleges, sub-divisional hospitals, state general hospitals and the superspecialty hospitals have to constitute hospital level fire safety committees. The committee will closely monitor the functionality of fire safety measures; check if the fire safety norms are followed in the vulnerable points. The committee will identify the loopholes in the firefighting mechanism in the hospitals.

All the medical colleges in Bengal and the CMoHs in all the districts have been asked to conduct fire safety audits on a regular basis. Hospital-level fire safety mechanisms have to be activated to take an optimum level of precautionary measures.

The hospital level committee will also send recommendations to the state Health department suggesting remedial measures in this regard. The committee may also recommend corrective measures that ought to be taken in the hospitals.

Earlier this month the health department issued another order instructing the CMoHs for quick completion of all ongoing works and obtaining or renewing fire safety certificates for completed works must be done on time. The recommendations from the appropriate authorities of the Fire and Emergency Services department have to be followed. Action taken reports in the prescribed format must be sent to the hospital administration branch of the Health department.

After coming to power the present government laid huge emphasis on the revamp of fire safety infrastructure in hospitals. Fire audit has been given utmost importance to check any mishap.