Hospital in TN Moves Towards Normalcy After Blaze

Following a fire on Wednesday, the Apollo Speciality Hospitals in Tamil Nadu's Madurai city is limping back to normalcy.

"The hospital is functioning normally now. Out of around 200 patients evacuated yesterday (Wednesday), 120 have been shifted back to the hospital," hospital's chief operating officer Rohini Sridhar told IANS over phone.

Sridhar added that about 60 patients, who were satisfied with their medical condition, have been discharged from the hospital.

"Around 15 patients are still in other hospitals and their condition is being monitored," Sridhar said.

Fire broke out at the nine-bedded cardio-thorasic intensive care unit (ICU) on the second floor around 11.30 p.m. Wednesday.

"Only four patients were there at the time of fire," Sridhar said.

But taking into account multi-specialty facilities at the hospital, there were a total of 33 patients, including four babies, admitted in various ICUs.

"There was lot of smoke, therefore, as a matter of precaution all the patients were shifted out to unaffected centres and to some other hospitals. The entire evacuation operation was completed safely within 25 minutes," she said.

On the reason behind the fire, Sridhar said that electrical short circuit was suspected to have caused the blaze.

"The damage to equipment is yet to be assessed. Most of the damage was due to soot, which could be significant," she remarked.

The fire was quickly brought under control by fire tenders, according to Sridhar.

Source: IANS