Medics ‘abandoned patients’ as hospital blaze claimed 89 lives

Six directors at the care home in Kolkata have been arrested for culpable homicide.

“It was horrifying the hospital authorities did not make any effort to rescue trapped patients,” said Subrata Mukherjee, West Bengal’s public health minister. “Senior hospital authorities ran away after the fire broke out.”

People living in a nearby slum first noticed the smoke and fire just after 3:30am and rushed to the Amri Hospital to raise the alarm, but security guards kept them back, saying it was only a small blaze, witnesses said.

It took firefighters more than an hour to respond, said Pradeep Sarkar, whose uncle was among those safely evacuated. Some of the slum dwellers later helped in the rescue.

The area’s narrow streets made it difficult for fire engines to get close to the building and bring in hydraulic ladders. Eventually, they smashed through a main gate to make way for the ladders.

It took until mid-morning to bring the blaze under control. Rescuers pulled 73 bodies from the building and a further 16 people died of their injuries. Four of the dead are believed to have been staff members and most deaths were due to smoke inhalation.

One survivor said she was at the bedside of her mother, who was on a ventilator, when smoke started filling the room. “I kept ringing the bell for the nurse, but no-one came,” she said. She added that rescuers managed to evacuate her mother more than two hours after the fire started.

Rescue workers on long ladders smashed windows in the upper floors to get to trapped patients before they suffocated from the smoke, as sobbing relatives waited on the street.

S Chakraborty said his wife, Moon Moon, who was in the hospital with a broken ankle, had called him at home to say a fire had broken out. By the time he got there, she was dead.

Sudipta Nundy said his brother-in-law, Amitabha Das, who was being treated for an infection, died by the time rescuers arrived. “He would have survived had hospital authorities allowed outsiders in early to evacuate the patients,” he said.

Those rescued were taken on stretchers and in wheelchairs to a nearby hospital.

Prime minister Manmohan Singh “expressed shock and anguish over the loss of lives”.

West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banjeree announced that the hospital’s licence had been revoked, adding it was an “unforgivable crime”. Those responsible would face the sternest punishment, she said.

She said that while the fire brigade had been delayed, police had arrived quickly to help with the rescue.

The hospital has denied that healthy and safety requirements were violated. Satyabrata Upadhyay, a senior vice president, said the loss of life was “extremely unfortunate and painful”. He pledged to give 200,000 rupees (£2,500) to relatives of the dead.

“We deeply sympathise and share the pain and agony of the family members of the patients admitted here,” he added.

The hospital was recently rated one of the best in the city by an Indian magazine. But safety regulations are routinely ignored at hospitals throughout India, where it is common for extinguishers, if present at all, to be several years old and never serviced. Few buildings have fire stairways, and drills are virtually unheard of.