In the wake of the tragic fire at a Vivek Vihar nursing home, Delhi Health Minister Saurabh Bharadwaj on Monday announced stringent new safety regulations for nursing homes over nine meters tall, mandating water sprinklers and smoke detectors, and directed all CDMOs to conduct random inspections of all medical centres in the city.

The Health Minister said that there is a rule that hospitals with a height of less than nine meters do not require fire NOC, and further added that this is the reason why this hospital also did not have a fire NOC.

In view of the recent incident, instructions have been given to all hospitals, whether single-storey or double-storey, to have all safety arrangements to deal with fire in their hospitals, he added.

It will ensure that water sprinkler systems and automatic smoke detectors are installed in all hospitals so that in case of any such incident, the fire can be extinguished immediately by the water sprinkler system and any major accident can be prevented from happening.

The minister has also mandated fire audits for all private and government hospitals, with compliance reports due by June 8, and highlighted plans to recommend bravery awards for two nurses and five citizens who saved children’s lives in the ghastly incident.

He added that the ongoing oxygen refilling processes in nursing homes will be investigated.

On Monday, he called a meeting of the Health Department officials, in which the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) and Special Secretary of Health were present.

“From time to time, the government has taken steps to prevent such accidents. On 24 April 2024, instructions were issued to all private and government hospitals in Delhi for fire preparedness. Along with this, on 8 May 2024, instructions were also given by the Health Department to all government and private hospitals in Delhi to conduct fire audits once again,” he said.

In today’s meeting, Bharadwaj further said that instructions have been issued to all government and private hospitals that they should submit the compliance report of the fire audit of their respective hospitals by 8 June.

“Along with all these preparations, we have also ordered the hospitals to check their electrical systems, because in the summer season, incidents of fire are often seen due to short circuits,” he stated.

Sharing a very commendable point related to this fire incident in Vivek Vihar with the journalists, Minister Shri Saurabh Bharadwaj said that at the time of this accident, two nurses present in the hospital and five local citizens (RWAs) there put their lives at stake to save the lives of these children, which we feel is a great lesson for the society.

“We will propose the names of all these people for the bravery award and will request the government to give bravery awards to all these people for their courage. All the people who died in this accident are generally from the poor section, so keeping this in mind, we have also recommended the Revenue Department to give compensation to the accident victims,” he said.