THANJAVUR: A total of 137 patients in the labour block of the Government Raja Mirasdar Hospital (RMH) in Thanjavur were shifted to safety after a fire broke out in one of the rooms of the three-storeyed building around Thursday afternoon.
Nine staff members who suffered breathing problems in the billowing smoke from the fire triggered by suspected short circuiting in an air conditioning unit were treated on campus.
According to sources, the fire broke out in the AC installed in the pre-anesthesia assessment room located on the first floor of the hospital’s labour block. A cot below the AC also caught fire. Even as hospital staff members were dousing the flames with a fire extinguisher, smoke billowed out and spread to the entire block. Hospital staff and the attendants then evacuated all the patients in the block.
On information, fire and rescue services personnel pumped out the smoke in the block using a smoke exhauster.
District Collector B Priyanka Pankajam soon visited the hospital and inspected the block where the fire broke out. She also visited the nearby block to which the patients were shifted.
Later the collector said there were 24 patients on the floor where the fire broke out. A total of 137 patients, including children, were in the block. “No one was injured in the incident. A team of doctors from the Government Thanjavur Medical College Hospital (TMCH) also arrived at RMH to monitor the patients,” she added.