A very heartbreaking and serious accident took place late at night at the District Women’s Hospital in Amravati, Maharashtra. Three innocent newborns lost their lives when a massive fire broke out in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) on the third floor of the hospital. Following this shocking incident, there was a great chaos and panic in the entire hospital premises.
According to the preliminary investigation and information received, the tragic accident took place late at night around 3:30 am. One of the ventilators kept in the NICU ward had a sudden loud blast, due to which a short circuit momentarily caused the fire to spread all around. At the time when the accident occurred, there were 39 critically ill newborns under treatment in this special wing.
Seeing the seriousness of the incident, the doctors, nursing staff and security personnel of the hospital started the rescue operation immediately. The staff made frantic efforts to get the children out of the ward safely despite the smoke. Despite these continuous efforts, three innocent children could not be saved, while 6 children have been immediately shifted to a super specialty hospital for more advanced and specialized treatment.
This tragic incident has raised many serious questions about the safety of patients and newborns as well as the availability of fire safety equipment in government hospitals. A high-level investigation is currently underway into all aspects of how the explosion took place in a sophisticated medical device such as a ventilator and how effective the fire-fighting system was.