Fire at Ludhiana hospital, 132 evacuated

Charanjit Singh Teja

Tribune News Service

Ludhiana, March 21

A fire broke out at the Mohan Dai Oswal Cancer Hospital in Sherpur last night. No casualties have been reported.

As many as 132 patients from the emergency and general wards, including eight newborns, who were in Intensive Care Unit, were evacuated.

Three patients on life support systems were later moved to the Christian Medical College and Hospital (CMCH).

The fire started at a laboratory at midnight. Efforts to control the initial blaze with fire extinguishers yielded no results.

As the laboratory is housed in the basement of the hospital building, the billowing smoke filled the Emergency ward at the ground floor.

The hospital authorities called to Fire Brigade. The blaze was brought under control at 8 am, fire officials said.

Dr VK Kaushal, Medical Director of the hospital, said, “We evacuated all the patients to safety. Everything is under control.”

The authorities did not reveal the cause of fire while fire officials suspected some chemical reaction led to the fire.

The hospital authorities shifted the patients from emergency ward to the mess of the girl’s hostel while general ward patients were shifted to the class rooms of college on the hospital premises.

Attendants at the hospital claimed that they were ill- equipped to deal with such emergencies.