The urgent and reactive response to COVID-19 precluded concurrent provisioning of fire safety even in health facilities that were equipped to deliver oxygen therapy. This unfortunately exposed many patients, caregivers, and hospital staff to higher risk of fire hazards.
The safety and functional viability of health facilities in routine as well as emergency situations are critical for uninterrupted delivery of essential health services. Care and treatment spaces had to be rapidly expanded with arrangements for oxygen therapy to manage the high caseloads during the waves of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Fire incidents have been reported in hospitals and temporary COVID-19 care facilities in the South-East Asia Region. The inherent fire hazard risk increased significantly in health facilities due to the oxygen-rich environment; use of alcohol-based hand sanitizers; overloaded electrical systems; inadequate fire suppression and protection systems; and overworked regular and surge staff unaware of fire safety. To enable health facilities to become fire-hazard resilient, it is essential to assess fire risks and strengthen fire safety through planning and implementing risk mitigation and response readiness interventions with effective training.
WHE/SEARO in collaboration with GeoHazards International initiated fire safety interventions on the request from the Quality Assurance and Regulation Department of the Ministry of Health, Maldives. Along with the training of trainers, the fire safety checklists were field tested in the Indira Gandhi Memorial Hospital and Hulhumale hospital in Male’ and the Regional Hospital and Dharavandhoo Health Centre in Baa Atoll from 9-14 October 2022.
As an outcome of this intervention, the MOH, Maldives has expressed keen interest in advocating, facilitating and scaling up fire safety assessment activities across the country. The need for enhancing safety and resilience at the health facilities including the development of health facilities-specific standards on fire safety were also stressed upon.