VIRAR HOSPITAL FIRE TRAGEDY: CEO, CAO ARRESTED

In a shocking incident where massive fire broke out at Vijay Vallabh Hospital on Friday, took lives of 15 Covid-19 patients. The state government had ordered an inquiry into the matter. Police on Sunday, arrested the two doctors in connection with the Covid Centre fire tragedy. Two managing doctors of the hospital have been arrested after a preliminary inquiry into the matter. Police has arrested the Chief Executive Officer and the Chief Administrative Officer of the Palghar-based hospital where tragedy took place.

The hospital’s CEO, Dr Dilip Bastimal Shah (56), and CAO Dr Shailesh Dharmadev Pathak (47) were arrested and later produced before a Vasai court which remanded them in police custody for one day. The Arnala Coastal police had booked the hospital management along with medical staff of the hospital under IPC sections 304 (culpable homicide not amounting to murder), 304, 337, 338 (causing hurt by act so rashly or negligently as to endanger human life) and 34 (common intention).

According to the officials of Vasai-Virar crime branch, both the managing doctors were held for alleged negligence and violation of the fire safety norms. The hospital failed to get its fire audit conducted for the current year and also did not have the fire department’s No Objection Certificate (NOC), an official said.

The fire broke out on Friday in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) located on the second floor of the four-storey Vijay Vallabh Hospital at Virar in Maharashtra’s Palghar district, about 70 km from Mumbai. There were 90 patients in the hospital, 17 of them in the ICU when the fire broke out after a blast in the AC unit shortly after 3 am. It was extinguished at 5.20 am by then there were several lives lost. Maharashtra government had announced a compensation of Rs 5 lakh to the next of kin of the patients who had died and Rs 1 lakh to the critically injured patients.