Fire in LNJP, emergency services closed

Emergency services in the hospital were closed down immediately after the incident, and till late in the night the hospital authorities were seen turning away new patients.

The new building, where the emergency department is housed, is located 200 feet away from main hospital. Inside, there is an Intensive Care Unit, a 60 bedded-emergency ward, an operation theatre and laboratories. Also inside, at the time of the incident, were around 115 patients, 60 doctors and about 100 other hospital employees.

Eyewitness, mostly doctors and relatives of patients, say they noticed smoke in the corridor outside the X-Ray room around 8.30 p.m. Though the blaze did not spread beyond the X-Ray room, thick fumes from burnt electric wires and fittings and X-ray machines spread across the newly constructed building and into the wards. Air-conditioning ducts proved to be an easy passage for the toxic fumes. Within minutes there was panic.

Window panes were smashed open and an operation hurried completed as the hospital staff went about bringing out the patients to safety.

Says Virender, a doctor in the emergency operation theatre: 8220;We had just completed an operation on a young woman, when we heard the commotion. I opened the door and the thick fumes rushed inside. My first reaction was to save the patient who was still under anaesthesia.8221;

Virender and an assistant then started running, pushing along the operation trolley with the patient, through the thick fumes till they reached outside the building. They back later to retrieve 8220;some of the equipment, each of which cost Rs 1 lakh8221;. In the wards, nurses and relatives ripped out IV bottles and blood bags, before bringing out the patients through windows. Doctors in the Intensive Care Unit, situated down the corridor from the X-ray room, sealed the room till help arrived. All the patients inside were on oxygen and ventilators, and they had to be moved out without disturbing the equipment.

While five patients and an X-ray unit attendant who also fell unconscious were taken to the resuscitation unit, the remaining patients inside the emergency department were shifted to various wards in the main building.

Says Bans Raj, who had brought his wife to the emergency department earlier in the evening: 8220;I had gone to get the report on her blood test, when I heard about the fire. I ran back, but someone had already taken out my wife by then. Later I found her in ward number 26 of the main building.8221;

Several hospital employees complained that seven fire tenders reached only at 9.05 p.m., more than 30 minutes after the fire was reported. 8220;By then, we had brought out all the patients. The blaze had also died down, all that was left for them were thick fumes,8221; says Dinesh, an attendant in emergency ward.