JUNAGADH: Without waiting for stretchers, alert staffers at a private hospital used bedsheets to quickly carry patients out of the medical facility which was filled with smoke in the wee hours of Monday in Gujarat's Junagadh city following a fire in an adjacent laboratory.
The hospital itself had not caught fire, but it received a massive amount of smoke emanating from the blaze-hit laboratory, a diagnostics centre.
Both the hospital and the lab facility are located on the first floor of the building where the fire broke out at around 4:30 am.
In all, ten patients were rescued from the hospital and admitted to the city's civil hospital, doctors said.
Of them, five patients suffered from breathing complications due to smoke inhalation and were later referred to another private hospital for further treatment, police officials said, adding most of them are out of danger.
As fire raged in the diagnostic centre, it threw up a large amount of smoke that entered nearby Kaneria Hospital located in the Sardar Baug area, they said.
Amid panic and confusion, patients were lugged out of the hospital through the emergency exit door and rushed to the civil hospital in ambulances for further treatment, they said.
As per the officials, there were ten patients in the hospital who were rescued and taken to the civil hospital after smoke filled the building.
A couple of relatives of the patients who were present in the hospital were also affected by the smoke, said police.
"The laboratory and the hospital shared the first floor of the building, divided by the staircase. There is hardly a distance of 20 to 25 feet between them. Supported by wind, smoke entered the hospital through its entrance and covered the hospital. Patients suffered after inhaling smoke," said inspector of B-division police station, Nilesh Rathod.
Hospital head Dr Maulik Kanoria said, "There was no fire in the hospital. But patients suffered from suffocation due to a large amount of smoke entering the hospital building. The patients were shifted out safely. There was no casualty."
He said the patients were taken out through the fire exit door on the other side of the entrance by hospital staffers using bedsheets.
Both Kanoria and the manager of SRL Diagnostics, where the fire broke out, insisted that the two facilities were well equipped with fire safety measures.
"It is not possible to say how the fire broke out because there are several equipment there. We have received all fire NOCs and necessary equipment are in place," said Hardik Thakkar, the lab manager.
However, fire department officials said prima facie the fire appears to have been caused by a short circuit in an inverter, but the exact reason will be determined after forensic examination.
Last year and in 2020, Gujarat reported a spate of deadly fire incidents in hospitals, including those designated to treat COVID-19 patients.
The deadliest one among them was in a Bharuch hospital on May 1, 2021, that claimed 18 lives.
In another incident, eight COVID-19 patients had died in a massive fire in a private hospital in Ahmedabad on August 6, 2020.
Similarly, five patients had perished in a blaze in a private hospital in Rajkot on November 27, 2021.