Five Covid-19 patients, all of them male senior citizens, died in a massive fire that broke out in the ICU of a Covid-designated hospital on Mavdi Road in Rajkot last week. A short-circuit in one of the ventilators is suspected to have triggered the fire, which spread so fast that the fire brigade could not save their lives, though their office is barely 300m from the hospital. The incident happened at around 12.40 am at the 54-bed Uday Shivanand Hospital, which was designated for Covid treatment about two months ago. There were four staff in the ward including a doctor, but they could not use the fire extinguishers since the fire spread so fast.
In all, there were 33 patients in the four-storey hospital and 28 of them were shifted to other hospitals. The condition of all patients is said to be stable.
There were 11 patients in the ICU ward located on the first floor. Three of them died on the spot due to severe burns while two others, who suffered minor injuries, succumbed to breathing problems when they were being shifted to another hospital.
The facility runs in a building owned by Shivanand Mission Trust and is operated by Gokul Life Care Pvt Ltd, popularly known as Gokul Hospitals. The hospital runs in a residential society. The Rajkot Municipal Corporation (RMC) has designated 24 private hospitals for Covid treatment. Municipal commissioner Udit Agrawal said, “There was some spark, but we are yet to ascertain whether it was in a ventilator or some machinery.”
Expressing grief over the incident, chief minister Vijay Rupani announced a compensation of Rs 40,000 to the kin of each deceased and ordered a probe that will be headed by additional chief secretary, AK Rakesh.
