Preparation of disaster management plan
SHILLONG: After the hospitals failed to comply with its earlier directive, the State Government has issued a fresh directive to the hospitals to come up with the disaster management plan within eight weeks time.
It may be recalled that the Government in 2011 had directed the various hospitals to come up with the fire safety plans immediately after the AMRI fire incident in Kolkata.
“We have given them additional eight weeks time to ensure that they follow the guidelines and put in place a contingency plan within the revised time frame,” Principal Secretary (Disaster and Management) told reporters on the sideline of a three-day workshop on hospital safety, mass casualty management and hospital disaster management planning is being organised for both government and private-run hospitals on Friday.
He said that the plans would be prepared by the hospitals with the assistance of experts engaged by the government.
Srivastava said that under the national school safety project, 45 engineers from the State would be trained on disaster management from March 1 this year, adding that altogether 45 engineers will undergo the training.
National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) member, Muzzaffar Ahmed said that the national disaster management guidelines would be also implemented soon to ensure that hospitals adhere to safety norms.
Not just the hospitals, the Government is trying to put in place similar contingency plans in places of mass gatherings such as schools, colleges, hospitals, cinema halls, places of worship, malls and others.
This is being done to minimize the loss of lives and damage to property in the event of any incident.
Srivastava, further said, that the Government is working with all the other departments that buildings with sound structure are built following standard norms laid by the Government and the Government is also in the process of identifying weak structures in the State.
He said that engineers were being trained through a course on Rapid Visual Screening (RVS) for Buildings to identify potential hazardous old structures. In this regard, he said that five engineers have been trained at the National Institute of Disaster Management (NIDM), Roorkee.
These engineers in turn would train 45 engineers in the State on RVS. But surprisingly, Srivastava said that it would take another 3 years before these 45 engineers would be trained in the course to identify hazardous old structures in the State.
He explained, “Some of these engineers who would be trained on RVS are also carrying out their other responsibilities, so it would take time.”
Member from the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), M Ahmed said, the country was going through a phase of training and learning before the lessons learnt could be implemented.
But, nonetheless, he went on to add that India is geared up to face any disaster and cited the example of the Odisha Cyclone, in which the loss was minimum.
The National Disaster Management Authority (reporting name: NDMA), is an independent, autonomous, and constitutionally established disaster preparedness federal institution mandate and responsible to deal with whole spectrum of disaster management and preparedness in the country.