KOLKATA AMRI HOSPITAL FIRE-
SEVEN DIRECTORS SENT TO POLICE CUSTODY
Seven directors of city-based AMRI Hospital - where a fire killed 91 people the day before - were Saturday sent to 10 days' police custody by a court here while hundreds of protestors outside the court premises demanded death penalty for them and lawyers vowed not to defend them.The Advanced Medicare and Research Institute (AMRI) directors, including Shrachi Group chairman S.K. Todi and his counterpart in the Emami Group R.S. Goenka, were brought to court under tight security as hundreds of agitated people gathered near the court building and shouted slogans, demanding death penalty for them.One of the seven directors, R.S. Agarwal, who was admitted to a private hospital Friday evening, could not be presented before Alipore Chief Judicial Magistrate S.M. Shahnawaz Khan. Agarwal was placed under arrest in the hospital. Government counsel Kalyan Bandopadhyay sought 14 days' police custody of the arrested directors. The court remanded them in police custody fot 10 days.Accusing the hospital authorities of recklessness, Bandopadhyay later told reporters: "The directors had deliberately switched off the fire alarms and locked the exit doors. They had blatantly violated fire safety norms."The directors were arrested Friday for offences that include culpable homicide not amounting to murder which attracts a maximum punishment of a jail term up to ten years and fine.
The Alipore Lawyers Association, a group of advocates, also joined the demonstrators outside the court and said its representatives would not allow any legal practitioner to stand in defence for the accused hospital directors."We have decided that no lawyer will stand in defence of these people (directors). We not only demand death penalty for them but also urge the court not to grant bail," said association secretary Kalachand Talukdar.In the worst fire tragedy in any hospital in India, 91 patients and three staffers were killed in the city's well-known AMRI Hospital when a blaze started in the basement of the annexe building early Friday and quickly spread, trapping hundreds of people.The pre-dawn blaze broke out at 3.30 a.m., catching many patients in their sleep. While most nurses, doctors and other staffers were able to get away, many critically ill patients died in their hospital beds.
Prof. John Kurakar
1 comment:
Patient safety is not a concern for hospitals. Regency Hospital is a well-known hospital in Kanpur, UP and the management claims to give quality treatment to the patients. Here are two incidents, you judge for yourself:
I accompanied a patient for X-ray, the patient is 70 year old lady, not very firm, needs help walking and climbing. There were two technicians who took x-ray and both of them left the patient on X-ray table and went to another room to check if the x-ray they have just taken is good. The patient was trying to get down herself and was about to fall from the table when I noticed from outside the room and ran to catch her from falling but it did bruise her arm.
The X-ray technicians had to repeat the x-ray on the same patient and this time I told the technicians but this time they did not close the tray properly and it was jetting out and the patient got hit by it and bled. A diabetic patient getting wounded at x-ray table? Both these incidents should have been reported but no one reported them.
Third incident happened with me, also at Regency Hospital, patient was being transported and the stretcher hit me. The patient transportation staff did not even have the courtesy to stop and say sorry, are you OK.
This is just an example of patient safety and caring attitude. I am told the said hospital is trying to get NABH certification. Is anyone listening, UP Government, Chief Minister, Health Minister, health secretary NABH people. If you are listening then do some
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