Bhandara Fire: Most of the infants choked to death, says hospital staffer

Even as the hospital and district administration claim that a short circuit led to the fire in the Special Care Newborn Unit SCNU of Bhandara Civil Hospital which killed 10 infants in the early hours of Saturday the police have roped in a highlevel committee to probe the incident furtherThe night duty nurse inside the neonatal care unit which is fully airconditionedConfirming the development Vasant Jadhav Superintendent of Police Bhandra district said ldquoWe have asked an expert team from three different agenciesmdashNational Fire Service College NFSC in Nagpur Visvesvaraya National Institute of Technology VNIT and forensic scientists from Directorate of Forensic Science Laboratories in Nagpurto visit the site They will collect samples and conduct a detailed proberdquoFor now the police have registered an accidental death case under Section 174 of the Criminal Procedure Code CrPC ldquoWe will wait for the expert committeersquos report to decide on further probe if anyrdquoAccording to a staffer at the hospital while seven newborn underweight infants were kept in the incubator 10 infants who were under observation were in the adjacent room ldquoThe parents of these infants are not allowed in the SCNU and hence were not present at the time of incidentrdquo the staffer saidThe incident took place inthe early hours of Saturday morning ldquoThe night duty nurse inside the neonatal care unit which is fully airconditioned spotted smoke in the adjacent section She immediately alerted superiors and the fire department was rushed to the spot but it was too laterdquo said the staffThe 10 infants who lost their lives choked to death The remaining seven infants in the neonatal units were saved by the hospital staff and have been shifted to nearby centres ldquoThe incident happened in the old building and most patients from the adjacent labour room and wards including those on dialysis were shifted in the nick of time averting any major disasterrdquo said another hospital staffer who did not wish to be identifiedDistrict civil surgeon Dr Pramod Khandate was not available for comment MV Deshmukh former Director Maharashtra State Fire Services and adviser to state government said that incident could have been avoidedDeshmukh who had spoken to some of the firefighters said that prima facie it seems that the short circuit happened close to a bed in the outborn section and it suddenly spread to the other bed ldquoAs per my information three out of the 10 infants who died had minor burn injuries whereas seven others choked to death It is unfortunate that the said SCNU ward did not even have any smoke detector or smoke alarmrdquo he saidDeshmukh claimed that the reason for the toxic fumes could be the subquality material used for making beds and linen and other inflammable material kept inside the ward ldquoThe fire broke out in a small area but it was the thick toxic fumes that spread faster An adult gets asphyxia by inhaling toxic fumes within 60 to 90 seconds after which the brain cells get deprived of oxygen resulting in coma and death Infants do not even have developed lungs which resulted in immediate deathrdquo