Repeated fires at Pune’s Aundh District Hospital have exposed a wider public-safety problem: an ageing government healthcare building is serving a large patient load while its fire preparedness, electrical systems, sanitation and emergency access remain under scrutiny. A Civic Mirror report says the hospital has recorded three fire-related incidents in the past one-and-a-half years, including two near its Special Newborn Care Unit (SNCU), while no fire-safety audit has reportedly been conducted since 2021.
The report concerns the district hospital at Old Sangvi in Pimpri-Chinchwad, commonly referred to as Aundh District Hospital. The facility treats hundreds of outpatients daily and has more than 200 inpatients, according to the report. It has departments covering gynaecology, maternity care, men’s wards, intensive care, newborn care and paediatrics, with a stated capacity of 300 beds.
This makes the fire incidents more than isolated maintenance failures. A public hospital is a tightly interdependent building system: electrical equipment, medical gases, oxygen supplies, lifts, evacuation routes, fire doors, water availability, alarms and staff training all have to work together. A weakness in one part can complicate the operation of every other part, particularly when patients include newborn children, intensive-care patients and people who cannot move independently.
The first incident cited in the report occurred on 17 November 2024 in a storeroom next to the SNCU. Newborn babies were moved to safety after the fire. On 16 April 2026, a wall-mounted fan near the same area reportedly overheated and caused a short circuit. Fifteen newborn babies were being treated in the SNCU at the time, according to the report. A third incident, involving an alleged short circuit, took place on 18 June 2026 in the backup unit of the old intensive-care department.
The account attributes the avoidance of serious casualties to the alertness of hospital staff and the timely shifting of infants during the earlier incident. It also raises questions about whether electrical installations are being inspected regularly, whether the causes of the fires were formally addressed and whether deficiencies identified in earlier fire-safety assessments were closed.
The most significant administrative issue is the reported absence of a fire-safety audit after 2021. The report says that fire-safety audits are required every six months and that the hospital has not undergone such an assessment in the intervening period. It lists the systems that would need to be examined, including extinguishers, fire alarms, hydrants, sprinklers, emergency exits, fire doors, emergency lighting, electrical infrastructure, fire pumps, water supply, oxygen and medical-gas safety, staff training and fire drills.
The report also says that some extinguishers have expired and that emergency systems are not functioning adequately. These allegations are not presented as an independent technical inspection in the supplied material. However, the recurrence of fire incidents near critical-care areas makes the question of documented inspection and compliance central to the hospital’s safety management.
The hospital’s physical condition adds another layer to the problem. District Surgeon Dr Ambadas Devmane told Civic Mirror that the building is 62 years old. The report separately describes it as more than five decades old and says that the structure has deteriorated. Age alone does not establish that a building is unsafe, but older hospitals often require continuous upgrades to electrical networks, fire compartments, evacuation routes, lifts, plumbing and medical-gas systems as clinical services expand.
The hospital is also reportedly operating with limited usable space. The third floor has been allotted to the Maharashtra University of Health Sciences in Nashik, leaving the hospital with two floors for its clinical operations, according to the report. This is significant because the facility’s stated capacity and patient demand are already high. The report puts daily outpatient attendance at around 300 and says that the inpatient departments also carry a substantial load.
The pressure is visible in the lift system. The hospital has three lifts, but one is around 15 years old and requires replacement, the report says. With only two lifts currently operating, movement of patients and relatives becomes more difficult during busy periods. For critically ill patients, lift reliability is not a convenience issue; it directly affects the movement of people on stretchers and the speed with which clinical teams can respond across floors.
Sanitation and storage practices described in the report point to the same institutional problem: spaces meant for one function are being used for another. Some toilets are reportedly being used to store scrap and unused material. The report also describes broken doors, inadequate water supply, accumulated waste and poor cleanliness. On the terrace, discarded metal beds, mattresses, plastic chairs and medical scrap are said to have been left in the open.
The presence of stored material in toilets or on a terrace does not by itself prove that it caused any of the fires. But it can obstruct access, reduce usable escape space and add combustible material to an already complex hospital environment. It also indicates that maintenance, housekeeping, asset disposal and fire preparedness cannot be treated as separate administrative tasks.
Named citizens quoted in the report describe a lack of drinking water, unusable toilets, lift failures and mosquito growth linked to waste on the terrace. Social worker Mangesh Bodhak said patients should receive better facilities, while a patient’s relative, Amit Jagtap, questioned the absence of a fire audit since 2021. These accounts provide a ground-level view of how infrastructure shortcomings are experienced by patients and families, although they are individual testimonies rather than a comprehensive facility audit.
The hospital administration’s response outlines a corrective plan. Dr Devmane said the existing fire-fighting system is capable and that a six-metre-wide road will be created at the rear of the hospital to allow fire engines to move. He also said work on one staircase would be completed and that the hospital would fulfil the requirements for a fire No-Objection Certificate before a fire-safety audit by the Pimpri-Chinchwad fire department.
That response shifts the focus from whether the hospital has any fire equipment to whether its full safety system is documented, tested and maintained. A functioning extinguisher is only one component of preparedness. Fire engines need access; patients need clear evacuation routes; alarms must be audible and operational; staff must know their roles; electrical faults must be identified; water must be available; and newborn, intensive-care and oxygen-dependent patients require specialised evacuation procedures.
The case also illustrates the limits of treating compliance as a periodic paperwork exercise. A fire audit can identify deficiencies, but safety depends on closing those deficiencies, recording responsibility, setting deadlines and retesting the systems. In a hospital, this process must operate alongside daily clinical work, procurement, housekeeping, building maintenance and emergency drills. If responsibility is divided among the hospital administration, public works agencies, fire authorities and other departments, the hand-offs themselves become a governance risk.
The reported situation at Aundh District Hospital therefore raises three linked questions. First, what was identified in the last fire-safety assessment and which recommendations remain pending? Second, were the three fire incidents investigated through formal technical reports, particularly with regard to electrical systems? Third, who is responsible for certifying that emergency routes, lifts, water systems, fire equipment and medical-gas installations are safe for a hospital carrying a large and vulnerable patient population?
The available report does not provide copies of audit documents, incident reports, fire-department findings or a completion schedule for the proposed works. Those documents would be necessary to establish the precise compliance status of each system. What is established in the report is that the hospital has experienced three fire incidents, that the building is decades old, that patient demand is substantial and that the district surgeon has proposed access and staircase work before a fresh fire-safety audit.
The next important milestone is therefore not another assurance but the completion and publication of the fire-safety assessment, along with the status of corrective measures. Until then, Aundh District Hospital remains a case study in how ageing public infrastructure, overcrowded facilities and delayed safety checks can converge around the people least able to protect themselves during an emergency.
