EVALUATION ON PREVENTIVE EVACUATION MEASURES IN AIDING THE MEANS OF ESCAPE FOR PATIENTS IN SINGAPORE PUBLIC HOSPITAL - SINGAPORE GENERAL HOSPITAL (SGH) BLOCK 4, 5, 6 AND 7

Abstract

Fire destruction is one man’s job, fire prevention is every body’s job – source unknown Fire destruction is perceived as a devastating source of danger that can caused by one person. It can give rise to physiological, psychological and monetary impact on human, business and the economy. Hence, “prevention is better than cure”, it is everyone’s job to prevent the cause of fire in any building in Singapore. Fire safety is extremely critical in hospital which involves bed-ridden and assisted patients that required enormous manpower and resources in the event of uncontrollable fire. The Singapore Public Hospital has received an increase of admission patients aged 65 over the past eight years from 316,261 in 2006 to 373,022 in 2013. It is forecasted that by 2030, there are a significant increase of aging population from 11.7% to 12.4%. This has also shown that there are high possibilities that the admission rate for patients aged 65 will increase correspondingly. As such, the purpose of this research study is to understand the preventive evacuation measures put in place in hospital and its effect in aiding the means of escape of the patients in a smoke and non-smoke environment. An extensive literature review was conducted which discussed on the characteristics of fire, the principle of fire spread and the different fire development stages that is likely to encounter. The danger of smoke and its impact to human health were also discussed in this study where the main cause of fire death are usually due to the long exposure of inhalation of carbon monoxide which may cause death within a short period of time. Furthermore, the study of preventive evacuation measures such as the principle of compartmentation, fire alarm systems, fire evacuation drills and means of escape was extensive discussed. The challenges faced in hospital was also highlighted to understand the difficulties faced by the FSM when executing these preventive evacuation measures to prevent any cause of fire in hospital. Hence, the research study has utilized the use of Pyrosim to simulate the worst fire scenario in SGH Block 4, 5, 6 and 7. A fire scenario is created where the fire is ignited at the storeroom in SGH Block 4, 5, 6 and 7 at a time interval of 5, 60, 120, 240, 300, 500, 800 and 1200 seconds. It was found out that visibility threshold limits for all fire scenarios in all blocks has reached its limit within 500 seconds. On the contrary, all the exits in all blocks did not reach their threshold limits and were still accessible for the evacuees to evacuate away from the fire origin. The results obtained from Pyrosim together with the Pathfinder software to evaluate the ability of the evacuees to evacuate from the fire origin area within 500 seconds. Based on the comparison between non-smoke and smoke environment, it has found out that there is a significant increase of evacuation time by 168.2, 121.5, 176.7 and 123.1 seconds for Block 4, 5, 6 and 7. This increase was caused by the presence of ICU units, reaching the threshold limit Temperature, CO level and Visibility and the familiarity of the evacuees. In the evacuation in a smoke environment, the total evacuation time was 470, 420, 465 and 415 seconds for Block 4, 5, 6 and 7 with a total fatalities rate of 59.1%, 20.1%, 25.8% and 19.8% respectively. Despite high fatalities rate and longer evacuation time, the evacuation time is still within the NFPA 99 requirements of 480 seconds. However, this research study does not consider other factors such as the effect of toxic gases which were unable to be simulated in Pyrosim and Pathfinder. Nonetheless, the findings from this study provide a comprehensive study for the FSM to formulate and revise their current fire safety measures in hospital.