An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­na-lisa.paul@guardian.co.tt

A man­u­fac­tur­er’s de­fect in a re­cent­ly in­stalled air-con­di­tion­ing unit at the Ma­ter­ni­ty Ward of the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal (PoS­GH) has been iden­ti­fied as the cause of yes­ter­day’s evac­u­a­tion af­ter smoke trig­gered the build­ing’s fire alarm sys­tem.

The in­ci­dent prompt­ed an im­me­di­ate re­sponse from hos­pi­tal of­fi­cials, who evac­u­at­ed staff and pa­tients as a pre­cau­tion. Au­thor­i­ties lat­er con­firmed that the sit­u­a­tion was brought un­der con­trol quick­ly and that no in­juries were re­port­ed, in­clud­ing among new­borns in the Neona­tal In­ten­sive Care Unit (NICU).

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Fire Ser­vice (TTFS) re­ceived the call around noon and dis­patched fire ap­pli­ances from its Wright­son Road head­quar­ters. Up­on ar­rival, fire­fight­ers dis­cov­ered smoke em­a­nat­ing from a re­cent­ly in­stalled air-con­di­tion­ing unit on the build­ing’s third floor.

In­ves­ti­ga­tions re­vealed that the dri­ve belt of the 30-ton Pack­aged Car­ri­er Air Han­dler AC unit had be­come dis­lodged, caus­ing the rub­ber belt and sur­round­ing in­su­la­tion to burn. The re­sult­ing fric­tion gen­er­at­ed smoke, which spread through sec­tions of the four-storey build­ing.

Hos­pi­tal of­fi­cials said the dam­age was lim­it­ed to the blow­er wheel pul­ley’s rub­ber dri­ve belt and in­su­la­tion ma­te­r­i­al. They em­pha­sised that the in­ci­dent was not elec­tri­cal in na­ture, con­trary to ini­tial re­ports, as there were no pow­er out­ages or tripped break­ers. Fur­ther as­sess­ments were ex­pect­ed to con­tin­ue to­day.

Of­fi­cials said the sup­pli­er had been con­tact­ed and not­ed that the unit re­mains un­der war­ran­ty.

Pa­tients and staff on the ground and third floors were safe­ly evac­u­at­ed. Two women in labour on the sec­ond floor were as­sist­ed by med­ical per­son­nel and moved to safe­ty, while a third pa­tient un­der­go­ing surgery re­mained in place af­ter the area was deemed se­cure.

Fire of­fi­cers con­duct­ed a com­pre­hen­sive search of the build­ing and de­clared all floors safe be­fore is­su­ing the all-clear for re­oc­cu­pa­tion at ap­prox­i­mate­ly 12.45 pm. The third floor was sub­se­quent­ly ven­ti­lat­ed to clear the re­main­ing smoke.

In a state­ment is­sued lat­er in the day, the North West Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty (NWRHA) said NICU staff and pa­tients were evac­u­at­ed safe­ly and with­in a short time­frame while the TTFS as­sessed the build­ing.

“NICU staff and pa­tients were safe­ly evac­u­at­ed with­in a short time frame, while the TTFS con­duct­ed an as­sess­ment of the build­ing to de­ter­mine its suit­abil­i­ty for re-oc­cu­pan­cy,” the au­thor­i­ty stat­ed.

“The build­ing was in­ves­ti­gat­ed and cleared by the Trinidad and To­ba­go Fire Ser­vice with­in ap­prox­i­mate­ly one hour.”

The NWRHA al­so re­port­ed that emer­gency cas­es were ac­com­mo­dat­ed at the Main Op­er­at­ing The­atre dur­ing the in­ci­dent. One preg­nant woman, clas­si­fied as a non-emer­gency pa­tient, was trans­ferred to the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex in Mt Hope as a pre­cau­tion.

The au­thor­i­ty stressed that no ba­bies were trans­ferred to an­oth­er in­sti­tu­tion.

“All ba­bies were safe­ly evac­u­at­ed from the NICU and re­turned to the unit once clear­ance for re-oc­cu­pan­cy was giv­en. All ba­bies are ac­count­ed for and con­tin­ue to be mon­i­tored by clin­i­cal staff,” the state­ment said.

The NWRHA added that all es­tab­lished emer­gency and evac­u­a­tion pro­to­cols were fol­lowed and that no ad­verse events re­sult­ed from the in­ci­dent.