Power overload caused fire at Gosha hospital

Visakhapatnam: Overload of power led to a short circuit in Victoria General Hospital (Gosha Hospital) that led to destruction of equipment, the Transco officials told Principal Secretary, Health, Poonam Malakondaiah, who visited the hospital on Monday. Transco officials said they have been supplying 47 kv of power but the hospital was using more power which resulted in the short circuit.

The secretary after inspecting the damages in the hospital held a meeting with Superintendent Dr K Padmaleela in the presence of District Collector Pravin Kumar, Andhra Pradesh State Medical Infrastructure Development Corporation chief engineer D Ravindra and transco officials and asked them to restore all the damaged equipment in the next 10 days.

When the Superintendent informed the Principal Secretary that there was no UPS support, she expressed her ire and asked Chief Engineer Ravindra to issue a show-cause notice to Deputy Executive Engineer of the Corporation K Venkateswara Rao for neglecting his duty.

She enquired with District Fire Officer J Mohana Rao about the response of the fire services department at the time of incident and suggested to him to conduct regular mock drill with the security and hospital staff.

She also suggested to the transco officials to lay underground cables to the hospital and keep monitoring the power supply to avoid mishaps in the future.

The Health Secretary appreciated the efforts of nursing staff who quickly evacuated the new born babies from the floor where the smoke bellowed. There were nine babies in the hospital at the time of fire and two were shifted to King George Hospital and the remaining were put in a separate ward.