Three newborns killed in massive fire at Maharashtra Hospital’s NICU after Ventilator explosion

In Maharashtra’s town of Amravati, a huge fire in a District Hospital in the early morning hours claimed the lives of three newborns. The fire broke out in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU), which is said to have been caused by a break in a ventilator.

The incident occurred at approximately 3:30 am, on the third story of the hospital on the site of the NICU. Apparently, there were 39 admissions of babies to the unit at the time.

Once the fire started, a evacuation operation was carried out by doctors, nurses and the hospital’s staff. Six babies were moved to super-speciality hospital for treatment and six babies were rescued from the ward.

Inside the ward, there were images of the damage, and some of the equipment inside the ward looked charred, with sections of the wall blackened by the smoke and flames.

A police team was summoned to the hospital and started a preliminary investigation. Authorities are now trying to pinpoint the exact cause of the fire and if a ventilator exploded was the cause of the blaze.

Health experts closely monitored the conditions of the rescued infants and more details of the incident were awaited. The tragedy has sparked serious fire-safety and essential medical equipment-related concerns in the operation of neonatal-care facilities.

There will be a detailed investigation into the cause of the fire, to ascertain if there was any injury to be overcome which helped lead to the deaths of the three newborns.