Rs 90 crore for fire safety measures in Government Hospitals: Health secretary J Radhakrishnan

 State Health secretary J Radhakrishnan has informed the Madras High Court that the government has proposed to sanction nearly `90 crore for providing ramp and fire safety equipment in all government
Government Hospital in Chennai (wikimedia commons)
Government Hospital in Chennai (wikimedia commons)

CHENNAI: State Health secretary J Radhakrishnan has informed the Madras High Court that the government has proposed to sanction nearly `90 crore for providing ramp and fire safety equipment in all government hospitals in the State. This submission has been made in a counter before the first bench of Chief Justice Indira Banerjee and Justice PT Asha last week when a PIL from Jawahar Shanmugam of Tiruvanmiyur came up again for hearing.

The petition prayed for directives to the government to make it mandatory to provide a ramp from the top floor to ground floor and fire-fighting equipment in government hospitals. Fire-fighting equipment will be installed in 34 government medical college hospitals and institutions at a cost of `41 crore in Chennai. While it will be about 3 crores for Tiruvannamalai, it will be `1.57 crore for Kanniyakumari district. For providing ramp facilities, `16.30 crore and for providing generator rooms in 19 government hospitals `27.36 crores has been earmarked.

The counter further said that of 4,141 hospitals in the State, 1,215 hospitals have ground with the first floor and 1,170 hospitals have ground floor with two floors. While 1,877 hospitals have a valid fire safety licence, 538 had applied for renewal. About 1,400 hospitals have no valid fire safety licence at the time of inspection. As many as 3,808 hospitals have a fire safety plan/patient evacuation plan. Over 2,000 hospitals either have no plan or not display them on their campus.

Of the 1,939 hospitals with ground plus two floors or above, 1,059 have usable ramp provision and 880 have no such usable facility. Of the 1,939 hospitals that are mandated to have ramp facility, only 668 have both valid fire safety license and ramp. The remaining hospitals either did not have either valid fire safety licence or ramp, the counter said. The matter has been adjourned till July 30.

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