SC raps Gujarat govt for delay in fire safety audit of hospitals

The Supreme Court on Monday said that lapses by private hospitals to comply with fire safety norms and building byelaws cannot be condoned at any cost as they result in human tragedies.

Hearing a suo motu petition on the issue of proper treatment for Covid-19 patients and dignified handling of dead bodies, a bench of justices D Y Chandrachud and M R Shah said, “Hospitals have become a large industry. They survive on human distress. They cannot be protected at the cost of citizens

NEW DELHI:

whom they are meant to subserve.”

The court’s remarks came while dealing with a decision of the Gujarat government on July 8 to allow private hospitals and nursing homes in the state to comply with the ‘building use certificate’ requirement by July 2022.

After eight persons were killed in a fire at Shrey hospital, a Covid hospital, in Ahmedabad and another five were killed at another Covid hospital, Uday Shivanand Hospital, in Rajkot last year, the top court in December had ordered for mandatory fire safety audit of all hospitals across the country and the appointment of a nodal officer for every Covid hospital.

“Once we have directed to take action against the hospitals not compliant with the building byelaws, we cannot allow you (state) to grant them protection till 2022,” the court said while taking note of the carte blanche protection offered to hospitals/ nursing homes violating guidelines in Gujarat.

Senior advocate Maninder Singh appearing for the state informed the court that most hospitals had complied with the building safety and fire safety norms and what remained was compliance with regard to building use.

Singh made it clear that there was no attempt on part of the state to wriggle out from its duty to comply with the court orders.

The bench remarked, “The impression that goes out to the common man is that the state wants to shield persons who are committing illegalities….we were shell-shocked to see how a person who recovered from Covid and had to be discharged the next day died in a fire at a Nashik hospital. Two nurses who went to the washroom were burnt alive. These are human tragedies which have unfolded before our eyes and yet we go on extending time to these hospitals.”

The bench sought the state government’s reply within a week after it found the July 8 order to be “prima facie in breach of the Supreme Court direction”.

Hospitals cannot be protected at the cost of citizens whom they are meant to subserve