The SCB Medical College and Hospital here in collaboration with the fire brigade on Saturday organized a mock drill to train hospital staff to deal efficiently with fire disasters. This came in the wake of the May 31 fire mishap in the cardiology department in which 60 patients had a narrow escape.
The mock drill session started from cardiology department and in phases all the staff of all the 30 departments of the SCB will be trained. “The training programme will continue till June 29 and staff of each department will be sensitized to deal with fire mishaps,” said administrative officer of the SCB Pratap Mishra.
During the session, hospital staff like paramedics, attendants, nurses, doctors and administrative staff were educated about the causes of a fire mishap, precautions to be taken immediately in such exigency and how to handle the fire extinguishers and carry out rescue operations in the wards. And more importantly they were taught how to check spreading of fire. The drill focused on timely action in bringing down the magnitude of mishap, said a fire officer engaged in the training programme.
The fire mishap at the cardiology department had brought to the fore the ill- preparedness of the hospital in dealing with such disasters. Besides lack of adequate firefighting equipment, the hospital staff also lacked knowledge to deal with such mishaps. The Orissa high court took serious note of the matter and directed the authorities to take appropriate action.
The hospital staff were trained to handle portable fire extinguishers, raise alarms and how to rescue patients faster. “All the wards in the SCB are overcrowded all the time so our main focus was to train the staff to rescue the patients immediately and effectively,” said fire brigade staffer G Mohanty.
Fire officials claimed that in phases such mock drills will be conducted in all the major government hospitals. Mishra said very soon portable fire extinguishers and fire alarms will be installed at strategic locations of the hospital.
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Date: June 15, 2016