AMRI HOSPITAL FIRE INCIDENT AT KOLKATA

AMRI Hospitals Dhakuria Block 1

(A Joint Sector with Govt. of West Bengal)

P-4&5, C.I.T. Scheme-LXXII, Block-A,

Gariahat Road (Beside Dhakuria Bridge),

Kolkata - 700 029

Advanced Medical Research Institute (AMRI) Hospital is fully equipped to dispense services in neurosciences, oncology, orthopaedics, trauma care, cardiology and cardiac surgery. AMRI Hospitals is the first in Eastern India to provide comprehensive cancer treatment through well qualified, reputed and experienced team of Cancer specialists, technicians and nurses. Now at AMRI Salt lake 184 beds are available to expand the facility of heath care. In 2010, there were plans to transform this department into a highly specialized, hi-tech eye unit that would cater to the people of Salt Lake as well as North Kolkata. AMRI has now come up with a hi-tech department, with the best equipment in ophthalmology and highly trained and dedicated personnel.

The fire brigade allegedly reached late and was initially ill-equipped - coming without masks with only rickety manual lifts - to deal with the disaster. While hospital authorities said 89 patients and three staffers had been killed. As anguished relatives looked for their loves ones, cries filled the air. And over that there were the voices raised in helpless anger as the families and rescue workers spoke out with the fire brigades arrived at least two hours after 3.30 a.m., when the fire broke out in the basement that stored a lot of combustible material, including gas cylinders and dangerous chemicals.

This is the second major fire in Kolkata in 20 months after the March 23, 2010 blaze at the landmark British-era Stephen Court in the heart of the bustling Park Street claimed 43 lives. The hospital was co-founded by the Emami & Shrachi Groups along with the West Bengal government in 1996, the hospital that was once rated as amongst India's best is located in the fairly upscale Dhakuria neighbourhood.

On Friday morning, the hospital, which prides itself on its super specialty facilities and attracts several foreigners, turned into a tinderbox as the sealed windows and glass led to the smoke being trapped, making it difficult for people to escape.'The victims mostly got suffocated from the fumes. Many of them were in a serious condition in the ICU,' Municipal Affairs Minister Firhad Hakim said that 'The father of one of my friends was admitted in one of the upper floors. When he heard I am at the spot he called up his son and told him to ask me to rescue him. I could not do anything. I saw his burnt body.'

There are around 200 beds in the affected block. 'At the time of the fire, there were 160 patients, including around 40-50, in the ICU. Eighty percent have been rescued,' a hospital spokesperson claimed. The hospital has two other blocks in the complex. Through the morning, a steady stream of patients, blackened by soot, were brought out while enraged relatives and locals vented their ire at the state and hospital administration.

'What's the use of coming now? He is already dead. All are dead. The administration is hopeless, useless,' shouted Pradeep Sarkar. His father-in-law had been admitted there on Thursday night with a heart ailment. He said the sky lift came only around 7 a.m. 'They (firemen) came with manual ladders. Had the sky lift come earlier, many people could have been saved. There are around 160 patients inside. All are dead...so is my father-in-law,' said an anguished Sarkar.

'Because Mamata is here, the ambulances cannot go towards the annexes building. Please ask her to shift to another road,' shouted a distraught relative of a victim. Banerjee tried to cool things down and shouted at police but it was little help. The patients said that the hospital management came only several hours after the fire broke around 3 a.m., said they had all fire-fighting equipments in place and did not know what had gone wrong.

The hospital authorities did not inform the fire brigade. The fire personnel were alerted by Lake police station at around 3.30 am and fire tenders reached the spot within 5 minutes," said a livid Javed Ahmed Khan, West Bengal's fire services and disaster management minister. Even as fire fighters used sky lifts, BSF's disaster management group and the police were pressed into service.

The BSF squad was summoned to investigate whether there was any radioactive leak from the radiotherapy machines housed in the lower basement for treating cancer patients. The managements of the two groups were known to be close to the leadership of the CPM-led Left Front government, which lost power to Trinamool Congress in May this year. Former chief minister Jyoti Basu and CPM heavyweight Subhash Chakraborti had both breathed their last at AMRI's Salt Lake unit.

Six AMRI directors arrested, hospital licence cancelled

Noted industrialists S.K. Todi and R.S. Goenka and four other directors of the  city's AMRI hospital, where a fire broke out claiming 89 lives Friday were arrested and booked for several non-bailable offences, police said. The hospital's licence was also cancelled, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee announced.

'Six directors of the AMRI hospital have been arrested today in connection with the fire tragedy. Those arrested include S.K. Todi, R.S. Goenka and Ravi Todi. They have been booked for several non-bailable offences, including culpable homicide not amounting to murder,' Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime) Damayanti Sen. 

Kolkata, Dec 9 (IANS) more than 89 patients in Kolkata's well known AMRI hospital were killed along with three staffers when a blaze started in the basement of the annexes building early Friday and toxic fumes quickly spread to the other floors, trapping hundreds of people. The tragedy unfolded over many hours as patients were suffocated to death, some trapped in their beds, others dying in their sleep too infirm to escape from smoke. The lucky few were brought down the side of the four-storey glass facade building.