THE breaking out of a fire at the Burn and Plastic Surgery Unit of Dhaka Medical College and Hospital (DMCH) on Tuesday afternoon has come as a renewed shock to patients and to the nation as a whole as something that not came to people’s thinking in normal situation. As it happened, after breaking out of the fire, panic gripped the patients, their attendants and staff members of the hospital as they tried to run helter-skelter for safety. It created a terrible situation to be handled by the hospital management, media reports said.
In fact such incident is not something new at DMCH Burn Unit although to the burn patients there is no other medical facility in the city where they can take better treatment and recover from burn injuries. A fire also broke out in the Hospital’s Burn Unit on March 26 this year. Besides, on January 9, 2012, a fire scare also led to the evacuation of over 200 patients of the Burn Unit. Although all these fires didn’t bear any formidable damage to burn patients, evacuation of patients on emergency basis became a big challenging task. It also made the hospital’s routine activities stagnant as the patients and hospital staff members have to work under tremendous pressure.
It goes without saying hospital management must be well trained and equipped to handle contingencies like fire and other disasters. Accident from electric circuits or such other electric gear may happen any time but evacuation of large number of patients to safety will be a daunting task. Particularly patients with burn wounds may have their wounds further worsen and face other complications.
It seems to be unbelievable as many wonder why the hospital authorities are not paying proper attention to plug the causes of fire repeated causing panic to patients and its management. The negligence is unpardonable simply and will blur the reputation of the unit; which has caught the attention of the nation as a highly equipped facility to attend burn patients. We can’t understand where the problem lies. It can’t be ruled out that unbridled corruption and mismanagement is at the center of such failure to ensure proper management with least risks from fire and such accidents. The DMCH captured media headlines many times in the past for mismanagement and poor condition of patients. The Burn Unit is now catching the headlines to the utter dismay of the nation.
We are so sad to say that our best institutions are falling apart from poor and reckless management of the authority concerned. But patients can’t be victims of such neglects. It is quite disappointing that the government yet again has failed to provide proper protection to patients in the Burn Unit. And a flame at Burn Unit can’t be expected at all. There must be all protective measures at all cost.
