94 die in hosptal fire after doctors flee....that's definitely lacking patient care.
http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2011/12/10/v-print/2839805/94-die-from-smoke-in-fire-at-indian.html
http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2011/12/10/v-print/2839805/94-die-from-smoke-in-fire-at-indian.html
Printed from the Charlotte Observer - www.CharlotteObserver.com
Posted: Saturday, Dec. 10, 2011
94 die from smoke in fire at Indian hospital
By Lydia Polgreen and Hari Kumar
Published in: A Section
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NEW DELHI To all appearances, the Advanced Medical Research Institute hospital in Kolkata was state of the art. It had some of the latest, most precise radiation-therapy equipment for patients in its cancer center. It offered special deluxe suites for its wealthiest patients. Its trauma surgery unit was said to be one of the best in eastern India, as well as its highly efficient emergency room.
But early Friday the hospital, known as AMRI, confronted an emergency for which it seemed to have no plan: An inferno in its basement transformed the entire hermetically sealed and air-conditioned building into a giant chimney for a searing, smoky fire.
When the smoke cleared, 94 people were dead, scores more were injured and a nation was left asking: Is nowhere, even an expensive, privately run hospital designed for the country's upwardly mobile classes, safe from the disaster that seems to lurk on every railway line, highway on-ramp and festival ground?
There appeared to be many reasons why the fire in the plush 180-bed hospital in Kolkata, formerly Calcutta, which started in the basement, roared out of control for hours. Ineptitude, poor equipment and bad information helped compound what initially seemed like a minor blaze.
The doctors on duty fled the hospital almost immediately, leaving patients stuck in their wards and at the mercy of the billowing black smoke, witnesses and patients told reporters.
Hospital officials were slow to call the fire department, and then fire trucks were slow to arrive, hospital officials said.
In fact, it took firefighters more than 12 hours to subdue the blaze, fire department officials said. The hospital's fire detection and suppression system did not function, fire department officials said.
Six senior hospital officials were charged with culpable homicide in connection with the fire, according to government officials. The blaze is sure to raise fresh questions about safety in India's booming private hospital business, which, like much else in India, is poorly regulated.
The hospital was storing diesel and motor oil in the basement, Firhad Hakim, West Bengal state's minister of urban development, said. Fueled by these volatile elements, the fire sent smoke into the upper floors via the elevator ducts, said Firhad Hakim, West Bengal state's minister of urban development. Patients, many of them bedridden, had no way to escape.
"Whoever they brought out, most of them were dead," Hakim said.
A fire division officer at the scene, A. Banerjee, said: "All the deaths took place because of suffocation. Nobody died because of fire."
