JB hospital fire: Make public probe findings, says inquiry committee

Chairman Mohd Hishamuddin Yunus says the committee has made 23 recommendations.

Mohd Hishamuddin Yunus, who headed the committee, handed over the 230-page report today to Health Ministry secretary-general Chen Chaw Min.

PETALING JAYA: A seven-man inquiry committee has submitted its findings to the government on the cause of a fire that resulted in the death of six patients at the Sultanah Aminah Hospital in Johor Bahru in 2016.

Retired judge Mohd Hishamuddin Yunus, who headed the committee, said the 230-page report was handed over to health ministry secretary-general Chen Chaw Min today.

“We have made 23 recommendations and have impressed on the ministry to declassify the report and make it public,” he told FMT.

Hishamuddin, a former Court of Appeal judge, was assisted by a deputy, Dr Abu Bakar Sulaiman, the former health ministry director-general.

Others on the panel were Soh Chai Hock (former Fire and Rescue Services Department director-general), engineer Adanan Mohamed Hussain (former Public Works Department director-general), architect Ezumi Ismail (member of the Board of Architects, Malaysia), Shahronizam Noordin (manager of Occupational Health Safety division, National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health) and Mohd Zailan Sulieman (senior lecturer, School of Housing, Building and Planning, USM, Penang).

The committee was appointed by then health minister Dr S Subramaniam and endorsed by the Cabinet in December 2016.

The Oct 26, 2016 fire broke out at the southern intensive care unit (ICU) on the second floor of the hospital.

Four female and two male patients died in the fire. A male patient was rescued by firefighters.

Doctors said the patients were dependent on ventilators under normal circumstances and could not be moved without their beds.

The fire did not spread to other areas of the hospital.

Another fire broke out at the hospital the following day. However, there was no report of any casualty.

Subra­maniam later said the first fire was caused by a spark in a capacitor in the ceiling light, which then came into contact with some combustible materials underneath.

Earlier that year, on July 2016, 28 patients at KPJ Specialist Hospital in Damai, Sabah, had to be evacuated when fire broke out at its main power control room, believed to have been caused by a short-circuit. -FMT