NE NEWS SERVICE
NEW DELHI, APR 23
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday condoled the loss of lives in a blaze at a private hospital in Maharashtra’s Palghar district and approved an ex gratia of Rs 2 lakh each for the next of kin of the victims.
Thirteen COVID-19 patients died in the blaze at the intensive care unit of a private hospital in Virar, police said.
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There were 90 patients in the hospital, 18 of them in the ICU, when the fire broke out after a blast in the AC unit, an official said.
The dead include five women and eight men.
“The fire at a COVID-19 hospital in Virar is tragic. Condolences to those who lost their loved ones. May the injured recover soon,” Modi was quoted as saying by the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO).
“PM @narendramodi has approved an ex-gratia of Rs. 2 lakh each from PMNRF (Prime Minister’s National Relief Fund) for the next of kin of those who have lost their lives due to the hospital fire in Virar, Maharashtra. Rs. 50,000 would be given to those seriously injured,” the PMO said in a tweet.
The fire broke out in the ICU on the second floor of the four-storeyed Vijay Vallabh Hospital at Virar shortly after 3 am, an official said.
Firefighters extinguished the blaze at 5.20 am, he added.
Maharashtra CM orders probe
Mumbai: Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray on Friday expressed grief over the death of 13 COVID-19 patients due to a fire in a hospital at Virar in Palghar district, and directed the local administration to probe the cause of the blaze.
A statement issued by the Chief Minister’s Office (CMO) said that Thackeray spoke to the district authorities on learning about the fire incident.
He asked the authorities to shift the other patients elsewhere.
“Give priority to douse the fire completely and ensure the treatment of the remaining patients is not hampered,” the statement quoting the chief minister said.
He said that Vijay Vallabh Hospital is a private facility and a probe should be conducted on whether the fire safety measures were being followed there.
State Health Minister Rajesh Tope said in a tweet, “The fire incident at Virar based Vijay Vallabh Hospital’s ICU section has claimed 13 lives. It is a very unfortunate and painful incident. CM Thackeray has ordered in-depth inquiry into this accident.”
AC was not working since Thursday afternoon, says an employee
Meanwhile, an employee of the private hospital in Maharashtra’s Palghar district, where 13 COVID-19 patients died in a fire after a blast in an air conditioning unit, said the AC system there was not working since Thursday afternoon and some repair work was going on.
The fire broke out in the intensive care unit on the second floor of the four-storeyed Vijay Vallabh Hospital at Virar in the early hours of Friday, in which five women and eight men died.
There were 90 patients in the hospital, 18 of them in the ICU, when the fire broke out after a blast in the AC unit, an official has said.
The hospital employee said the facility had been facing some problem with its AC system in the COVID-19 ward since Thursday afternoon.
“When I went to the hospital yesterday afternoon, the air conditioner was not working in the COVID-19 ward of the hospital. I saw that some repair work was going on at that time as AC panels were removed,” Supriya Deshmukh, a staffer at the hospital told a regional news channel.
“Meanwhile, the hospital set up some fans as a temporary arrangement. After finishing my work and I returned home late in the evening,” she said.
Meanwhile, the relatives of the COVID-19 patients who died in the incident, complained about the hospital’s alleged mismanagement to Shiv Sena leader and state minister Eknath Shinde, when he went to take stock of the situation.
The relatives told him that the hospital was understaffed, due to which proper attention was given to the patients.
Shinde told them that appropriate action would be taken.
