Nearly 50 per cent of TN hospitals have no fire safety licence

Dr J Radhakrishnan, principal secretary to Government, Department of Health and Family Welfare, while filing a status report on behalf of the expert committee constituted for inspecting and monitoring the fire safety arrangements in hospitals (both government and private), submitted that out of all hospitals 29.3 % (1,215 hospitals) have ground floor and first floor while 28.5 per cent (1170) hospitals had ground floor with two floors. But regarding valid fire safety licence, 14.1% (538 hospitals) had renewal pending and 36.69 % (1,400 hospitals) had no valid fire safety licence at the time of inspection.

Out of 3,808 hospitals, only 46.87% (1,785 hospitals) had fire safety plan/patient evacuation plan available which were displayed and 58.13 % (2,023 hospitals) either had no plan or had not displayed them on their campus. 

Also, out of 1,939 hospitals with ground plus two or above, 54.6% (1059) had usable ramp provision in their facility and 45.4% (880) had no usable ramp provision in their campus.

Also, out of 1,938 hospitals that are mandated to have ramp, only 34.5% (668 hospitals) had both valid fire safety licence and ramp facility in their hospital. The remaining hospitals either didn’t have valid free safety licence or ramp facility in their campus at the time of inspection.

Similarly, among the 19 private medical college hospitals, which were taken for analysis, all the hospitals had provision of ramp facilities while detailed disaster management plan/patient evacuation plan was available in 17 hospitals. But, regarding valid fire safety licence, 11 hospitals had valid fire safety licence, three hospitals had renewal pending while five had no valid fire safety licence at the time of inspection.

However, following the petitioner Jawaharalal Shanmugam seeking time to respond to the status report, the first bench comprising Chief Justice Indira Banerjee and Justice PT Asha posted the case for further hearing to August 30.