Team Herald
MARGAO: The Fire Department office of Margao has begun investigation into the fire incident at the Hospicio. The office has sent letters to Electricity Department, Hospicio and Police to investigate and find out the cause of the fire.
Meanwhile, the Congress has demanded an independent inquiry into the fire incident.
Nitin Raikar, the Deputy Director of the Margao Fire Station, said that his office has written to the Police, Hospicio and the Electricity department to establish the cause of the fire. He further said that it is difficult to ascertain the estimated loss as the incident is yet to be investigated.
Meanwhile, the Congress has demanded independent inquiry into Hospicio Hospital blaze.
“Goa government should conduct a thorough inquiry into the incident of fire at Hospicio Hospital in Margao yesterday as entire incident smacks of a suspicion,” Congress functionary Siddhanath Buyao said.
“It was sheer luck that no patients were present on the second floor of the Portuguese-era building when it got engulfed in the flames. This is for the first time that such a major incident has happened in this building, which is housing several hundred patients at any given time,” Buyao said.
“Also, we have to look at this incident from an angle that a private doctor, who was allegedly involved in hitting Director of Health Services Sanjiv Dalvi at Directorate of Health Services’ office in Campal, was running his unit. The doctor was highly upset as he claimed that bills worth lakhs of rupees were not settled by the department and he was already fighting a case in the Supreme Court,” Buyao said.
“Inquiries in the health department have revealed that he was asked to shift the dialysis unit from the second floor as the building was in bad shape. But the question remains is whether he was offered alternate space to house his unit, or just the order was passed asking him to move away from there?” he asked.
“There are several questions that need answer in this incident. We demand that the inquiry through independent authority should be conducted in the incident. The shoddy inquiry by Directorate of Health Services will not fetch any results. The department should be appointing an authority to investigate into why there were no proper fire safety measures in place in Hospicio Hospital,” the Congress demanded.
Meanwhile, the Congress also demanded that health department restart the dialysis unit with utmost priority so that patients do not suffer.
