Examination of fire safety measures taken in refunctioned hospital buildings

Fire is a disaster which can cause great harm to buildings and their occupants in a short time. In the face of such a disaster, importance of protecting of health care facilities becomes more important because of physical and mental conditions of their occupants and stored combustible and flammable materials in health care buildings such as hospitals. In Istanbul, many private health care institutions serve people. These institutions often rent or buy the buildings which were designed and constructed for different types of functions and then renovate them into health care premises. During this renovation process, fire safety measures are neglected or considered as less important. But in fact, these measures should be taken very carefully and be applied properly during these renovation works. Additionally, importance of adapting fire safety measures into the new function of these buildings emphasize in the Turkey's Regulation on Fire Protection. This study focuses on buildings located in Istanbul which are built for different functions but renovated into health care buildings and are still in use. Buildings which are built as health care buildings are beyond the scope of this study. The aim of this research is to investigate how fire safety measures are applied to these buildings which refunctioned into health care premises. In this way, the importance of applying fire safety measures properly according to owners of health care institutions can be analyzed. In health care buildings, certain rooms within patient-access areas constitute a particular fire hazard. These are known as "fire hazard rooms" and may include: chemical stores, cleaners' rooms, linen stores, disposal rooms, laboratories, lift-motor rooms, storerooms, kitchens, X-ray film and record stores, boilerhouses, flammable stores, laundries, main electrical gear, medical gas stores, medical records, pharmaceutical (manufacturing) areas. Healthcare staff must therefore make every effort to prevent fires from starting and must be prepared to respond if a fire breaks outs. When fires do occur in hospitals, improved fire alarm systems and fire suppression systems such as sprinklers should help to reduce the damage. All health care buildings must be subdivided into separate smoke compartments where patients can be moved without having to leave the building or change floors. Every health care institution needs to plan how the occupants will be kept safe in case of fire or smoke. Due to the fact that so many patients may be medically unstable and dependent on mechanical support equipment, complete evacuation of the facility in case of fire is to be initiated only as a last resort, and must proceed in a planned and orderly manner. Risk analysis is systematic use of available information to determine how often specified events may occur and the magnitude of their consequences. A fire risk assessment involves a physical inspection of the building to determine the adequacy of the existing fire precautions and the need for any additional measures. However, of equal importance to the physical inspection is a review of fire safety management in the organisation and consideration of the human factors – how people will respond to an emergency and whether they will take appropriate action. There are various risk analysis methods exist. Checklist method is chosen for this study. The checklist method employs the creation of a checklist of potential fire hazards and consideration of fire protection measures, either in place or to be added, to arrive at an assessment of the fire risks. The creation of a checklist of potential fire hazards allows a systematic check of potential fire hazards that are in place. 15 refunctioned hospital buildings were examined on-site with the help of their technical drawings. There are many big deficits in examined case buildings. These major deficiencies should be approached from many perspectives such as; the architects/engineers or firms who are responsible from renovation works, management or board of the premises, law-makers and users of buildings. For a good fire safety policy in buildings, priority should be occupant safety. Coordination between lawmakers, boards of institutions, designers and occupants becomes highly important issue in these kind of buildings. This study aims to arise awareness of the fire precautions which are being neglected during renovation works for refunctioned buildings.