Nearly five months after the Health Department directed 192 district and taluk hospitals to conduct fire safety audits, 158 healthcare facilities (82%) have completed the exercise and 98 have got the fire safety recommendation report as of September 20.
The remaining facilities have now been asked to submit the audit reports by the end of this month. This is the third time that the deadline is being extended since May. Health officials attributed the delay to paucity of fire safety officers.
On April 27, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who had a video-conference with Chief Ministers of all States, had suggested that all States should conduct fire safety audits in hospitals as fire accidents had increased due to summer heat then.
Following this, State Health Commissioner Randeep D. had issued an order on May 7 directing all government hospitals to conduct the audits and receive an NOC from the State Fire and Emergency Services Department. The hospitals had been asked to submit reports by May 21. While 163 hospitals were taken up in Phase 1, three hospitals in Phase 2 and 26 hospitals in Phase 3.
Subsequently, the department approved ₹82 lakh for the fire audit of 166 hospitals (at ₹50,000 each hospital under Phase 1 and 2) under the National Health Mission (NHM) and the funds were released on May 18. Funds for the remaining hospitals were also released thereafter.
Health officials said the grant of ₹50,000 for each hospital is the fee that has to be deposited with the Fire Safety Department after the audit is completed.
Audit complete in 14 districts
According to data from the Health Department, 158 of the 192 hospitals (82%) have got the fire safety audit done.
As per district-wise data, the exercise has been completed in all identified hospitals of 14 districts - Bengaluru Rural, Bengaluru Urban, Dakshina Kannada, Dharwad, Ramanagaram - (four hospitals in each district) - Davangere (6), Udupi (3), Vijayapura (5), Tumakuru (10), Chamarajanagar (3), Mandya (6), Kalaburagi (6), Shivamogga (7), and Yadgiri (3).
However, only nine districts have got the fire safety recommendation report issued by the Chief Fire Officer (CFO) so far. “After the audit, it usually takes over a month for the report to be issued,” officials said.
The Health Department had identified one BBMP referral hospital in Banashankari for the fire audit with NHM funds. However, the fire safety audit of this hospital is yet to be done and the compliance is zero.
Other than this BBMP hospital, the progress of fire audit is the lowest in Vijayanagara (17%), Koppal and Kodagu (50% each), and Mysuru (55%). The progress is ranging between 60% and 88% in the remaining districts.
Good progress now
Attributing the audit delay in some districts to paucity of fire safety officers, Mr. Randeep said the compliance is good now compared to the initial period when hardly 10% of the identified hospitals had completed the audit.
“There were some procedural delays then. But, now the hospitals are waiting for the fire safety officers to come and audit their facilities. We have requested the Fire Safety Department to prioritise government hospitals,” he said.
“The recent incidents of fire accidents in hospitals have reinforced the need for compliance with fire safety measures in hospitals across the State. Now the hospitals know that a fire safety audit is mandatory,” he added.
