Months before blaze at AIIMS, two advisories warned of hazards 

On Monday, the fire disrupted emergency and other important diagnostic services. According to Dr Praveen Aggarwal, Head of the Emergency Medicine department at AIIMS, paediatric and adult emergency services have been restored in old OPD block and have been functional since Tuesday.

The advisory had proposed for a regular thermal imaging to be carried out on the panels and distribution boards of the critical patients care areas on a monthly basis; the reports in this regard were supposed to be endorsed by the medical superintendent or additional medical superintendent.

Dr SS Kale, professor in-charge (security), AIIMS Delhi said the Central Building Research Institute (CBRI), Roorkee, has been conducting a fire audit and on Tuesday, a team from CBRI visited the trauma centre for the audit. The institute had ordered this third-party fire safety audit by the CBRI on August 3.

Dr Kale said the institute has audited new buildings such as Mother and Child Block and New Rajkumari Amrit Kaur (RAK) OPD, maps for which were readily available. The fire audit of the old buildings is pending. Dr Kale said that these fire audits take time.

In the two advisories mentioned earlier, the engineering department had highlighted the susceptibility of the premises to fire mishaps on account of high temperatures in summer. It had asked departments, centres and labs to ensure paper record and files should be stored in steel almirahs, pointing out that often a spark from electrical circuit or appliance is potent enough to ignite a blaze.

The engineering department had asked other departments and administrative incharge to ensure that lights, UPS, computers and air conditioners are switched off before leaving the room and a regular inspection is done.

“Department heads may issue instructions to staff to report any loose electrical wire connections that may lead to sparking,” the advisory said, adding that in case of need, representatives of  security office may be called to give a demonstration on actions to be taken in case of accidental fire.

The public relations officer of the AIIMS did not respond to requests for a comment on the advisories. Meanwhile, in the fire which erupted on Monday, an official from the endoscopy unit said that a computer and other surgical consumables have been damaged. A capsule endoscopy machine was also damaged due to the water that was used to douse the fire.