Visakhapatnam: Safety threat looms large over Covid care centres

Visakhapatnam: How safe are hotels and other buildings turned into quarantine facilities and Covid care centres in Vizag? This is the million-dollar question in the minds of many after the incident that happened at Swarna Palace in Vijayawada on Sunday.

Though the government is considering concrete measures after the incident, many had lost their lives by then.

Absence of proper coordination among the government departments is leading to costly lapses. Apparently, such lapses in following safety norms in Covid care centres (CCCs) or quarantine facilities that are attached to several hospitals treating coronavirus patients are not evident in Visakhapatnam.

However, no exercise pertaining to the fire safety precautions has been carried out before converting buildings into quarantine centres. "The private buildings used as quarantine centres in Visakhapatnam have obtained NOCs from the Fire department. In addition, three more private hospitals approached to obtain no objection certificate from the Fire department. Since they did not meet the criteria, they were denied the certificates.

Couple of them were given the NOCs later as they met the required norms," explained BVS Ram Prakash, District Fire Officer.

When private buildings are utilised as facilities to treat Covid patients, power usage is normally high. Variation between consumption of power and voltage streaming leads to short circuits. In case of any unforeseen incident, these buildings should be armed with fire-fighting equipment. But the mechanism to examine whether a building is capable enough for such high-power consumption or meet any exigency seems to be a question mark.

When verified, the Fire department officials have no clue about the statistics related to the number of private buildings being used as quarantine facilities. The reason for this is the district administration has taken up the exercise of converting the buildings into such facilities after verifying the NOCs. "Quarantine centres in Visakhapatnam are safe as buildings are examined before utilising them as CCCs or quarantine facilities. A few of the hotels and other buildings chosen for quarantine centres are in tune with the fire safety norms and also equipped with fire-fighting systems," says PV Sudhakar, Special Covid Officer and Principal of Andhra Medical College. Currently, there are 79 government and private hospitals, area hospitals, district hospitals, community health centres, primary health centres, CCCs and quarantine centres treating Covid-19 patients along with mildly symptomatic and asymptomatic persons.

After the short-circuit incident that claimed 10 lives in Vijayawada at the CCC of Ramesh Hospital, the state government directed the officials concerned to inspect and certify the electrical connection by the fire safety authorities in all the centres and hospitals treating Covid-19 patients.

In connection with this, task force teams are constituted to carry out investigation and submit a report in two days to the district authorities.

With hundreds getting treated in various facilities on a daily basis, the focus is now on ensuring safety of the patients.