Fire At Kolkata Hospital To Be Probed For Any Sabotage: Health Secretary

West Bengal Health Secretary N S Nigam on Friday said a probe will be conducted to find whether there is any sabotage behind the fire at the state-run SSKM Hospital here.

A fire broke out at SSKM Hospital here late on Thursday night but was brought under control within an hour and there was no report of any casualty.

"This is the third fire at the SSKM Hospital in a few years' time. We will look whether there is any sabotage or not," Nigam said.

On November 21, 2016 a major fire broke out at the library housed at the SSKM Hospital's Ronald Ross building. Before that, the Emergency ward of the hospital had witnessed a small fire on March 21, 2012.

There was a "partial" disruption of regular services in the Emergency ward of the hospital on Friday and most of the patients were referred to other departments to take regular tests following Thursday night's fire at the CT Scan unit housed there, an official said.

At least 25 patients have been shifted to the Trauma Care and Mackenzie Ward on Thursday night itself while patients who arrived at the Hospital for treatment on Friday were sent to other departments to undergo CT scan, ultrasonography (USG) tests after authorities decided to temporarily "stop" conducting such tests following the fire, a senior official said.

"We have shifted patients and referred those who are arriving here to take the tests in other departments. We have other units where CT scan and USG machines though the digital X-Ray tests are being done. Those machines will be examined before we employ them to test patients. We need to check whether there is any malfunctioning of the machines. We do not want any services to be disrupted. Hopefully, the services will be normalised soon," the official told PTI.

According to him, the equipment would be "examined" thoroughly by designated professionals from the manufacturers before they are again engaged to test patients, he said The fire that broke out could be because of a possible electrical short circuit in the air conditioning unit on the first floor of the three-storied building, the official said.

"There was a big blast-like sound on the first floor on Thursday night following which the entire floor was engulfed in smoke. The first thing we did was to shift all the patients from the Emergency ward to safe units. We are suspecting an electrical short circuit on the first floor behind the fire," he said.