GMC without fire fighting system

Tahir Mushtaq


JAMMU, Dec 14: Despite being one of the biggest hospitals in Jammu and Kashmir, Government Medical College Hospital (GMC&H) is awaiting a major disaster as it has a defunct Central Fire Control System to deal with any major fire incident.


Sources said that the multi-crore system installed in the hospital, two decades has become obsolete and the authorities at the helm of affairs are sitting over the proposal to upgrade it risking the lives of thousands of people visiting the hospital daily.


Sources said that the fire control system was installed at the time of construction of the building about 20 years back. However in absence of  proper maintenance and look after it became defunct over the years and  now the vital public asset with hundreds of crores of health  infrastructure eludes any fire fighting system.


“The main reason behind the collapse of the system was the lack of trained persons who are able to keep the system shipshape and also hold drills at regular intervals” said an official on the condition of anonymity. He said that at all if the system was restored there was no expert here who can check whether it was in order and would trigger automatically in case of any eventuality.


A senior doctor said that the network of water sprinkling pipes have gathered rust and these were leaking at various places due to which the entire system has become useless and defunct.


They said that the engineering wing of the hospital had formulated a proposal two years back wherein the cost of the repair for the system was estimated at Rs 30 lakh. But owing to the indifference of the authorities no progress was made in this regard till date.


Another case in hospital which shows the negligent attitude is the non- working of dialysis machines for the past more than two weeks as the two machines available for carrying the dialysis are out of order. This is not that something has happened for the first time, it occurs every now and then.


Some sources also revealed that the malfunctioning of the machines was the outcome of the lethargic approach of the GMC management. It was also learnt that defunct machines had added an extra pressure to the Dialysis Unit of the ASCOMS Hospital.