PMA suggests conducting of some drills at hospitals
Karachi
Pakistan Medical Association (PMA) in a press release on Friday expressed its very much concerned over the incident at National Institute of Child Health (NICH) in which two-day old had girl died due to a fire eruption incident in an incubator of the hospital.
It has asked for certain precautionary measures to be adopted at all hospitals throughout Pakistan to avoid happening of such incidents in future.
PMA maintained in its press release that just ten days back a fire broke out in National Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases (NICVD) and still the surgical facilities are not operational in the hospital.
“PMA feels sorrow over the death of the infant girl in fire and condoles with the grieved family. Such incident in a hospital at big city like Karachi is very depressing. The tragic incident should be investigated properly and if somebody’s negligence is found, he must be punished according to the rules & regulations.
Grandmother of the child constantly cried for about one hour for help but nobody came to save the child. Simply the closure of oxygen supply could have saved the child. Since medical staff and people around were not trained to deal with such emergencies, they do not know how to use fire extinguisher, eventually the child died. We should learn from our mistakes and negligence, so that these types of incident should not occur again,” it stated.
PMA believes that it is a serious issue and people are losing trust over the hospitals and are afraid of admitting their patients in hospitals.
Secretary General Pakistan Medical Association (Centre) Dr Qaisar Sajjad suggested the following preventable measures to be adopted to avoid these types of incidence in future.
1. All hospitals should start emergency drills to make their staff trained to deal with such incidence. This drill should be done after every three months at all hospitals in Pakistan.
2. Regular maintenance of the electrical system. In all old hospitals, the electrical system should be changed.
3. Regular maintenance of the medical equipments and machinery for proper functioning.
4. Maintenance of plumbring & sewerage of the hospitals.
5. Strict proper maintenance of the elevators at hospitals.
6. The hospital building should be checked and maintained properly on regular basis.
PMA believes that the administration of public and private hospitals should look into the matter seriously, so that these types of incidents could not happen again, it maintained.
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