BHOPAL: Jabalpur district Chief Medical and Health Officer, Dr Ratnesh Kuraria, and Fire Safety Officer Kushagra Thakur were on Tuesday suspended over Monday’s hospital blaze, on the order of Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan. All four directors of New Life Multi Specialty Hospital were booked for culpable homicide not amounting to murder, a day after eight people died in a huge fire at the hospital.
“The four directors Dr Nishant Gupta, Dr Suresh Patel, Dr Sanjay Patel and Dr Santosh Soni have been booked under IPC sections which pertain to culpable homicide not amounting to murder and attempted culpable homicide not amounting to murder. The hospital manager, who is also accused in the case lodged at Vijay Nagar police station, has been arrested,” MP home minister Narottam Mishra said.
Major lapses have been found at the hospital, Mishra said. “The fire NOC issued by the local municipal corporation had expired. All those involved in the lapses, including officials, will be probed by a high-level committee headed by the Jabalpur divisional commissioner,” he added.
The chief medical and health officer cancelled the registration and licence of the hospital with immediate effect. According to sources, the hospital had managed to get licence/registration from the health department without submitting a building completion certificate. The licence was issued ignoring absence of emergency entry and exit points, sources said.
Also, no fire safety audit was carried out at the hospital, despite the CM announcing mandatory safety audit after the November 2021 inferno at the paediatric ICU of the state government’s Kamla Nehru Hospital in Bhopal.
Meanwhile, Chouhan held a meeting of senior officials through video conferencing on Tuesday regarding the hospital inferno. He said hospitals should be checked in the entire state, including Jabalpur. If the fire safety system is found lacking, the licences of the hospitals should be cancelled.