Public safety traded for more revenue
Public safety traded for more revenue
VISAKHAPATNAM: Many hospitals in Visakhapatnam are vulnerable to mishaps of the Kolkata kind not only on account of not adhering t..

VISAKHAPATNAM: Many hospitals in Visakhapatnam are vulnerable to mishaps of the Kolkata kind not only on account of not adhering to safety rules but also due to structural issues and their location in narrow lanes.According to an IAS Officer, a number of buildings got permission to run hospitals under the Building Regularisation Scheme (BRS)of 1998, as per GO No 373. These buildings are not suitable even for medical clinics, let alone hospitals. The Building Regularisation Scheme has in fact turned into a crime regularisation scheme as more than 50 percent of the hospitals in the port city got regularised under BRS, he said.The government extended the BRS indiscriminately for the sake of revenue and ignored the safety of patients. Neither people's representatives nor frontline organisations ever raised their voice against the BRS, he said.City planner D Venkata Ratnam said the municipal corporation is inspecting buildings for irregularities. When the BRS was implemented all the illegal structures became legal, he said.He said all hospitals and nursing homes will have to display at the entrance diagrammatic floor-wise layout so that firefighters can have a fair knowledge of the building.While fire hydrants are a must, hospitals which are located in narrow lanes will have to sink borewells for linkage with the hydrants. Similarly, fire extinguishers will have to be installed based on floor area. However, all the hospitals are violating the norms since long, said a retired fire inspector.Coming down heavily on the fire department, GVMC and the medical and health department, orthopaedic surgeon Dr NVS Kiran Kumar, who has been running the 70-bed Krushi Orthopaedic Welfare Society for the last 20 years, said government officials did not inspect hospitals and medicals clinics before. They opened their eyes only after the fire mishap in Kolkata, he said and alleged that the officials can't crack the whip on big establishments due to political influence.

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