More than a score died and still more were maimed in an avoidable tragedy in my hometown Bhubaneswar back home. If reports of safety mesures and drill, or rather lack of it, are to be believed, the tragedy of SUM Hospital can be summed up as follows.
Shit happens. Do we take appropriate safety, preventive measures ever, learn from it and plug our lacunae with concrete actions ?
In my workplace, the employees need to go through mandatory Safety drills - with mock fire and tornado evacuations. Every section (there are 4 of them in each floor of our building) has a designated Safety Monitor with backup.
He or she, wearing a identifiable jacket leads the team members to the designated security areas. Elevators are strict no no in case of evacuation, mock or real. Every one MUST take stairs. For fire, one must step out outside the building and for Tornado, the basement area or desigmated Tornado shelters inside the workplace.
Once a burnt popcorn in a microwave triggered the high sensitive, higher pitched, highest shrill Fire Alarm. We got immediate out of the building in a few minutes. Mind it, this is a workplace of healthy individuals. In Hospitals, where we have incapacitated patients, the procedures should be more stringent and properly in place.
But will we ever learn from this ? Public memory is very short, so your guess is as good as mine.
Shit happens. Do we take appropriate safety, preventive measures ever, learn from it and plug our lacunae with concrete actions ?
In my workplace, the employees need to go through mandatory Safety drills - with mock fire and tornado evacuations. Every section (there are 4 of them in each floor of our building) has a designated Safety Monitor with backup.
He or she, wearing a identifiable jacket leads the team members to the designated security areas. Elevators are strict no no in case of evacuation, mock or real. Every one MUST take stairs. For fire, one must step out outside the building and for Tornado, the basement area or desigmated Tornado shelters inside the workplace.
Once a burnt popcorn in a microwave triggered the high sensitive, higher pitched, highest shrill Fire Alarm. We got immediate out of the building in a few minutes. Mind it, this is a workplace of healthy individuals. In Hospitals, where we have incapacitated patients, the procedures should be more stringent and properly in place.
But will we ever learn from this ? Public memory is very short, so your guess is as good as mine.
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