Majority city hospitals fail licence test

Of the 37 private hospitals in Kolkata, 21 are running without valid license and of the 289 private nursing homes in the city, 218 are running without valid license. A number of these have failed to comply with the fire safety norms. After the tragic incident at AMRI hospital in Kolkata where 90 people died on Friday morning, these unsettling facts are surfacing regarding the safety of the city hospitals. Already the fire department has come under fire as it was found that a number of hospitals are running without complying with the fire safety measures.

Yesterday, a city hospital was asked to stop admitting patients after it was found out by the visiting team of Fire department that the hospital was lackeying in maintaining minimum safety measures. The hospital has been given one month time to comply with the required norms. According to one senior fire department official, a good number of city hospitals did not bother about conforming to the norms and the department also used to take it very lightly. Now, after the AMRI incident, the fire department has started visiting the premises seriously and taking tough measures.

A meeting was held on Wednesday to review the situation where the Mayor of Kolkata Shovan Chattopadhayay, Police Commissioner Ranjit Pachnanda, ADG (Fire Services) Debapriyo Biswas and representatives of CESC were present. They were informed of the findings by the Corporation officials. Earlier the chief secretary of the state Samar Ghosh has instructed to form separate teams to visit and check if the hospitals, shopping malls, commercial houses, and high rise buildings are conforming to the various dsafety norms.

The chief secretary is supposed to get reports of the findings every 15 days. It was decided in on Wednesday’s meeting to speed up the act.