Two months after a devastating fire at a private neonatal hospital in east Delhi’s Vivek Vihar, the Delhi Police filed a comprehensive 796-page charge sheet on July 22, detailing severe lapses in fire safety measures and inadequate staff response. The fire, which broke out at the Baby Care New Born Hospital on May 25 at around 11:30 PM, resulted in the tragic deaths of seven infants and extensive damage to adjacent buildings due to exploding oxygen cylinders.
81 witness statements and forensic reports are included in the charge sheet that was filed with a city court. It demonstrates that the hospital was operating over its licensed capacity and without the necessary fire safety equipment. It was discovered that the hospital was using twelve beds when only five were permitted. A serious breach of the legal standards for operating a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) was highlighted by the lack of documentation proving any applied fire safety measures.
Eight crucial issues about the statutory criteria and norms for NICUs were evaluated, all of which the hospital violated, according to a senior police official involved in the investigation. The hospital’s lack of proof of any safety measures being implemented made its lack of fire safety preparedness very troubling. Furthermore, the facility declared having a certain quantity of oxygen cylinders; nevertheless, at the time of the occurrence, it had more than this quantity and was storing them dangerously, which led to the explosion that occurred during the fire.
The charge sheet also revealed that the hospital lacked any competent nurses and had only assigned BAMS (Bachelor of Ayurvedic Medicine and Surgery) doctors to care for infants in the NICU. The need that nurses in such establishments hold a General Nursing and Midwifery (GNM) qualification and be registered with the Delhi Nursing Council (DNC) was broken by this staffing issue.
Two people were detained in relation to the case: Akash, a BAMS physician who was on duty at the incident, and hospital owner Naveen Khichi. The hospital had a license to operate a five-bed NICU in 2021, according to documents from the Directorate of Health Services (DHS), Delhi, and the license renewal was being processed at the time of the incident.
The hospital’s serious violations of fire safety regulations and appropriate medical personnel, which resulted in the tragic and avoidable loss of young lives, were brought to light by the police inquiry. The conclusions of the charge sheet are intended to hold the guilty individuals accountable and stop similar occurrences from happening in the future.
A statement from the nursing staff indicated that the owner permitted other male staff to cook on the rooftop, a dangerous practice that the owner ignored despite being informed. The structural design of the nursing home was deemed unsafe for emergencies.
The charge sheet includes inspection reports from forensic experts, the Delhi Fire Service, the Electrical Inspector, and the MCD team, all of which point to significant safety violations. Inflammable materials, such as bundles of old papers and wooden items, were stored in the hospital, exacerbating the fire when it occurred.
The post-mortem findings confirmed that the infants died due to burns. Samples from the deceased infants, including viscera and femur, have been sent to the Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL) in Rohini for further analysis, with reports still pending.This comprehensive charge sheet underscores the severe negligence and safety lapses at the hospital, aiming to hold those responsible accountable for the tragic loss of innocent lives.
SOURCE:
INDIA TODAY
