A huge and terrible fire broke out late Sunday night in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) of the trauma center at Sawai Man Singh (SMS) Hospital in Jaipur. Eight patients died, three of whom were women.
Around 11:20 p.m., a fire broke out in the brain ICU ward’s storeroom, which held paperwork, medical equipment, blood sample tubes, and other things. Officials think that a short circuit may have started the fire.
Hard to Save in the Smoke
At the time of the event, there were 11 patients in the impacted ICU and 13 patients in a nearby ward.
An officer from the fire department talked about how hard it was for the emergency crews. When they got there, the whole ward was covered in heavy smoke, which made it impossible to go to any of the typical entrances.
The officer said, “We had to break windowpanes from the other side of the building and spray water jets inside.” Firefighters were able to put out the fire in about an hour and a half. Patients and their beds were quickly moved to the side of the road during the operation.
The Dead and the Political Response
The eight people that died were Pintu (Sikar), Dileep (Aandhi, Jaipur), Shrinath (Bharatpur), Rukmani (Bharatpur), Kushma (Bharatpur), Sarvesh (Agra, UP), Bahadur (Sanganer, Jaipur), and Digambar Verma.
After the tragedy, former Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot posted on X (previously Twitter) to say how sad he was and to demand for a full investigation.
Gehlot tweeted, “The fire in the ICU of the trauma center at SMS Hospital, which killed seven people [Note: initial reports said seven], is very sad.” I hope that this accident doesn’t kill too many people. May God give the souls that have passed on a place at His feet and quickly heal the people that were hurt. He further said, “The state government should look into this incident at a high level to make sure that it doesn’t happen again anywhere in the future.”