Fire at ICU of DMCH: It had no emergency evacuation system
The intensive care unit of Dhaka Medical College Hospital has no "emergency evacuation system".
An expert team was supposed to work to take critical patients to safety from the ICU in case an emergency arises. But no one came forward when a fire broke out at the ICU of the hospital's Covid-19 unit on Wednesday.
For the absence of ICU emergency evacuation plan, a mismanagement took place in shifting patients, claimed experts and relatives of patients.
Four people have died so far after the fire incident.
Brig Gen (retd) Ali Ahmed Khan, former director general of Fire Service and Civil Defence, said every hospital has to maintain a protocol and plan on shifting patients during ICU emergency incidents like fire and earthquake.
The plan includes a separate space where patients can be kept after being shifted, an in-house emergency response team of doctors, nurses, ward boys and cleaners to manage and shift patients with bed, he told The Daily Star on Thursday.
"But we did not see any evacuation plan at Dhaka Medical College Hospital and no one, expect the relatives, was seen shifting critical patients after fire broke out. For this reason, conditions of patients became more critical after they were shifted," said Ali Ahmed.
He said the Fire Service and Civil Defence issued directives to all hospitals to ensure the plan and continue holding emergency drills for the in-house team.
Analysing the DMCH fire incident, the former fire service DG said it seems that the hospital authorities did not provide any training to their staffers in this regard.
"We have come to know that the fire originated from a 'high-flow nasal cannula' and it can be doused at the beginning. But it seems that no one took any steps for extinguishing the fire that spread later," he said.
Ali Ahmed alerted that if the hospital authorities do not follow the plan and train their staffers, this type of incidents may happen again in future.
Around 8:10am on Wednesday, a light bulb exploded near the ICU bed-12 at the Covid-19 unit of DMCH new building and smoke started spreading out from it.
There are 14 beds in the ICU set up for Covid-19 patients after the pandemic hit the country last year.
Soon after the incident, doctors and nurses started coming out of the ICU unit quickly, leaving the patients behind. Patients were asking for help, but none came forward to assist them, claimed relatives.
Talking to this paper on Thursday, several relatives claimed that they had to shift patients on their own without oxygen support from the ICU which deteriorated the patients' condition.
The hospital staffers even did not provide support to patients after they were shifted, alleged some relatives.
Visiting the hospital in the last two days, it was found that the fire extinguishers in the building are also date-expired.
Three committees have been formed to investigate the fire incident.
Nur Hasan, chief of the four-member investigation committee formed by fire service, told The Daily Star that they visited the spot and recorded statements of witnesses.
He said the investigation is underway, but they are yet to ascertain how the fire originated.
Asked about the use of fire extinguishers and other instruments, the fire service official said they would check it during their next visit.
Regarding the evacuation plan and response team, Brig Gen Nazmul Haque, director of the DMCH, however, said they have an evacuation protocol and also have a trained the response team, but it did not work properly during the incident.
About the fire extinguishers, the hospital director said the probe body will check those.