Special fire safety audit on Vizag hospitals launched

Visakhapatnam: Less than half of the 300 hospitals and nursing homes here, including the health city, have obtained the mandatory no-objection certificate (NOC) from the fire department of the GVMC.

Concerned over the low compliance and peak summer situations, the district administration has launched a safety and fire audit on hospitals on Monday.

“We have formed 10 teams. Each team will have members drawn from panchayat raj, roads and building, engineering, fire department and revenue,’’ said district medical and health officer Dr Vijayalakshmi.

Talking to DC on Monday, the DMHO said each team will visit at least five hospitals a day and send the report to the government.

Sources said the King George Hospital, the biggest government hospital in Andhra Pradesh, has not covered all the departments. In fact, a significant number of government hospitals lack proper fire safety mechanisms. It is only the big private hospitals that have the NOC due to the pressure from the fire department.

Even among them, some hospitals have been unable to properly maintain their fire safety equipment and the staff is not trained to handle these.

Regional fire officer of GVMC Niranjan Reddy said there are about 300 small, medium and big hospitals, nursing homes and dental clinics in Vizag city. Of them, 200 might have obtained the fire NoC.

“We are taking the fire safety aspects vis-à-vis hospitals very seriously and will not hesitate to prosecute errant units if they fail to respond to repeated notices,’’ he said.

District fire officer Srinivas Reddy said a self- declaration is being sought from the hospitals and other institutions as the fire services personnel would not be in a position to conduct the audit due to the summer load.