An audit of all government and private hospitals of Maharashtra has revealed leakages in oxygen ducts or the valve of oxygen cylinders among a majority of the medical units surveyed. The audit further found that many of these hospitals hadn’t conducted a fire audit of their premises, posing a big safety risk for the patients and staff involved.
The fire and oxygen audits were conducted across the state on the orders of Chief Secretary Sitaram Kunte following accidents that occurred across the state over the past few months.
Each District Collector and Principals of Government Engineering, Polytechnic, and Industrial Training Institutes were involved in the audits of hospitals in their vicinity. The government had appointed Dr Abhay Wagh, Director at the Directorate of Technical Education, as the nodal officer.
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Overall, 1,814 hospitals that included 335 government-run and 1,479 private medical units were inspected across the state by 9 teams. An official added that the reports on 1,719 hospitals have already been sent to the respective district collectors.
The officials that conducted the audits were also monitoring how oxygen cylinders were stored along with the safety precautions. Additionally, they were also tasked with ascertaining the condition of the ventilators, emergency measures in place, as well as the skilled workforce at the hospital.
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“In most hospitals, leakage was found in the oxygen duct or near the cylinder valve. It was also found that fire safety audits have not been carried out,” the official said. The reports also talked about concerns such as materials or items obstructing oxygen cylinder storage as well as a lack of fire prevention systems in many storage units.
“After getting the oxygen audit paras, the district collectors immediately issued notices to the respective hospitals, asking them to take appropriate measures to fix the issues. Following this, corrective measures have been taken by the respective hospitals. So, it has helped save a lot of oxygen by fixing leakages,” another official mentioned.
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