600 small hospitals, nursing homes in Delhi neighbourhoods yet to comply with fire norms

There are around 1,100 hospitals and nursing homes in the capital and only about 100 can comply with the existing guidelines. There are a few that operate only on the ground and first floor and others that do only day-care procedures that do not need the NOC,” said an official.With structural changes like these being impractical for hospitals built on small plots of land, a Delhi government committee under the chairmanship of Health Minister Satyendar Jain had prepared a set of draft fire safety norms for such “mixed use” hospitals.Minor fires at Delhi’s Safdarjung and Makkar hospitals on Friday morning have sparked renewed concerns on how hundreds of small hospitals and nursing homes in the capital are currently operating without fire safety clearance or formal registration with the nursing home cell.
This is because these facilities — at least 600 small hospitals and nursing homes built in residential areas — cannot comply with existing safety norms for institutional buildings, including the creation of a 6-metre-wide access road for fire tenders, having 2.4-metre-wide corridors, and 2-metre-wide staircases.With structural changes like these being impractical for hospitals built on small plots of land, a Delhi government committee under the chairmanship of Health Minister Satyendar Jain had prepared a set of draft fire safety norms for such “mixed use” hospitals.There are around 1,100 hospitals and nursing homes in the capital and only about 100 can comply with the existing guidelines. There are a few that operate only on the ground and first floor and others that do only day-care procedures that do not need the NOC,” said an official.The new norms required the hospitals to have sprinklers and automatic fire alarms, but it did away with norms such as two staircases of 2 metres in width for these smaller hospitals.
These norms were, however, never notified. “It was pending between Delhi’s home department and the L-G office. However, the draft was completely discarded after the Supreme Court asked to carry out strict fire safety audits in hospitals with Covid patients,” the government official said. Now, the matter has been taken to court by the Delhi Medical Association.In the 2007 Delhi Master Plan, hospitals were allowed to open in residential areas as mixed land use. Hospitals over 15 metres high were considered industrial buildings and needed to comply with the guidelines. However, others were considered to be for ‘other activities’ and did not need fire clearance. After the Karol Bagh fire (which killed 17 people in 2019), this height for requirement of fire NOC was reduced to 9 metres,” said Dr Prem Aggarwal, director of Sanjeevan hospital and one of the members of the committee that came up with the new set of norms.

This led to a problem with the renewal of registrations of these hospitals and nursing homes. All hospitals and nursing homes in the city, by law, have to be registered with the nursing home cell to operate in Delhi, but a fire NOC is needed to renew the registration.

The hospitals received provisional registrations in March 2020 when inspections were suspended by the government due to Covid. The registration process began again in September last year.
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However, at least 600 similar facilities haven’t been able to comply with fire norms and renew their registration. “There are hospitals running without registrations, yes,” said Dr Aggarwal.