Delhi Hospital Fire: 7 Babies Die, Only Cleared for 5 Bed

New Delhi, May 2024** – The police have detained the owner of the hospital and a doctor and new information has come to light pointing to how the measures to spread of the infection were managed.

Seven infants meet death in blaze that ravaged a childcare hospital in east Delhi’s Vivek Vihar. Five oxygen cylinders exploded, further spreading the fire to the neighbouring buildings, and indicated serious negligence of various fire precaution measures taken by the hospital.

Permission Only For 5 Beds

At the onset the child care hospital had been licensed to operate five beds, however at the time of the instance 12 newborns were rescued from the, however among them 7 of the newborns died.

As for another hospital the information is the following — five babies are receiving diapers at the moment.The hospital has its official registration from the year 2021 and the licenseproved its validity till March 2024. The accident occurred on May 26, which meant that the said incident occurred after approximately two months of the accident. It was in the beginning of the year 2019 that a raid was carried out on the said hospital due to the accusations that the hospital had no valid registration.

The hospital is located in a residential area, and the RWAs of Vivek Vihar have charged the proprietors with running a business of refilling the oxygen cylinders in the name of a childcare hospital, and the fire spread and affected other structures after the oxygen cylinders blew up.They alleged that the company fills small cylinders through massive Oxygen cylinders and parked it near the main gate of the hospital.

No NOC, No Fire Extinguishers

New Born Baby Care Hospital owner, Dr Naveen Khichi from East Delhi’s Vivek Vihar was absconding since May 25 after the fire incident had happened.This central facility was not well equipped with fire extinguishers as well as there was no emergency exit when required, said the police.

Describing the incident, they said the doctor on duty was not certified to handle instances where neo-natal incentive care was required for the new born. Dr Akash was a BAMS doctor which comes from the Hindi term Bachelor of Ayurvedic Medicine and Surgery.DCP Surendra Chaudhary who oversees the Shahdara District reiterated that the hospital stocked more than the license allowed oxygen cylinders.

According to the kin of the newborn baby, it was only until this morning around noon that they were informed of the fire occurrence that happened late last night. The family complained to the authorities that they were left in the dark as to what was happening and requested to be shown where the newborns were being taken so they could recognize their baby.

Lt Governor Order Probe

While addressing the incident of fire in the Lok Nayak Jai Prakash Hospital, Lt Governor VK Saxena ordered the Chief Secretary Naresh Kumar to “institute an inquiry”.Mr Saxena mentions that he had to call, in the name of public interest, an ACB inquiry concerning alleged complacency, corruption or negligence in registration and management of private nursing homes in the city.

Speaking with the press, Mr Saxena said that ACB has now been instructed to launch a more massive probe into the registration of nursing homes specifically in the city, to determine the extent of the registration, as well as whether the existing registered nursing homes are up to the standard concerning the recognized norms .Saying that operating nursing homes “lacked ministerial oversight.., they acted criminally negligent and colluded with governments to get licences or renewals for these,” he lamented that he had to intervene.., because he did not see ‘appropriate seriousness’ from ‘those authorities on (the) same responsibilities’.

Earlier, the Delhi Health Minister Saurabh Bharadwaj had asked the chief secretary to speed up the inquiry into the fire incident.