6 patients killed as massive fire engulfs ICU at Raj govt hospital

Started moving ICU beds on our own...no one helped: Families

- Senjuti Sengupta

At least six patients died due to suffocation after a massive fire broke out at the intensive care unit (ICU) of the Rajasthan government-run Sawai Man Singh Hospital's trauma centre in Jaipur late on Sunday night, officials said on Monday, adding that the hospital superintendent and the nodal officer of the trauma centre have been removed from their posts.

“So far, at least six patients have been killed in the incident. The fire broke out due to a short-circuit on Sunday night at an attached store room of the ICU which is located at the second floor of the trauma centre,” said the Rajasthan health department in a statement.

According to officials, the blaze erupted around 11.20 pm in the neuro ICU ward’s store room, where papers, medical equipment, and blood sample tubes were kept. The fire spread quickly and the unit was covered with toxic fumes causing suffocation to patients as well as hospital staff, officials added.

“There are two ICUs — one comprising Il patients and another with 13. Our nursing staff and ward boys immediately started evacuating the patients but failed to rescue all when it turned into toxic fumes,” said Dr Jagadish Modi, deputy superintendent of the trauma centre of SMS Hospital.

The deceased were identified as Pintu Gurjar (25) from Sikar, Dileep (40) and Bahadur Dhanka (28) from Jaipur, and Shrinath Singh (59), Rukmani Kaur (50), and Khushma Devi (42) from Bharatpur.

Besides the six deceased, five more patients were also reported critical, of whom two— Sarvesh from Agra in Uttar Pradesh and Digamber Verma from Jaipur— died on Monday morning, with mortuary officials suspecting them to have died due to suffocation in the same incident.