Training comes handy as staff avert blaze in LNJP hospital
NEW DELHI: The seminar room in the seven-storey Emergency Block of the LNJP Hospital where a fire was reported in the early hours on Monday was locked when it had happened, and alertness and presence of mind shown by the staff of the facility averted a disaster, a senior official of the hospital said.
The 1,500-bed facility is the largest hospital run by the Delhi government, and also the nerve centre of the city’s battle against the coronavirus pandemic. “The incident took place around 12:30 am and some of our staff saw smoke coming out of the seminar room. Showing alertness, they opened the room immediately and used small fire extinguishers to put it out as much as possible, until the fire tenders arrived,” said the official.
“The fire had broken out in the seminar room, located on the ground floor of the emergency block, and all patients were immediately shifted, she said. No casualty was reported,” said an official with the Delhi Fire Service earlier in the day.
“Our staffers’ alertness and presence of mind averted a major fire incident, as it happened in a multi-storey block. Power supply had got briefly snapped but we shifted all patients from that floor,” a senior doctor with the hospital said.
The official said that staffers’ training in firefighting came handy. The official at the facility, located in the heart of Delhi, said the cause of the fire is yet to be ascertained as the smoke was coming of AC vents, indicating a short circuit may have led to it. Atul Garg, the director of Delhi Fire Service, earlier said, “Six fire tenders were rushed to the spot,” adding that the cause of the fire was being ascertained.
Ganga Ram hosp gets facility to test VITT
Sir Ganga Ram Hospital on Monday said that the facility has become the first centre in India to perform confirmatory tests for Covid Vaccine Induced Thrombotic Thrombocytopenia (VITT). The rare cases of blood clot and low platelets after receipt of adenovirus vector Covid-19 vaccines are referred to as VITT or Thrombosis with Thrombo-cytopenia Syndrome (TTS). The Hematology Department of the facility is the only centre in India doing the gold standard Platelet aggregation test in the country. This confirmatory test is presence of heparin dependant platelet aggregation of normal platelets by patient’s serum in presence of low dose of heparin. The diagnosis of samples is made within 48 hours.