SCB Hospital Tragedy Leaves Families Shattered As Place Of Healing Turns Into Scene Of Horror
Ten patients have died in the fire mishap at SCB Medical College Hospital. Officials said 23 patients were in the ICU at the time.
Published : March 16, 2026 at 7:12 PM IST
|Updated : March 16, 2026 at 7:58 PM IST
By Pradip Das
Cuttack: In the dim, uneasy hours before dawn, when anxious relatives resting outside the Intensive Care Unit had briefly surrendered to sleep, a devastating fire tore through the trauma care ICU of SCB Medical College and Hospital here, turning a place of healing into a scene of horror and grief.
At least 10 patients died after the blaze broke out around 3 am on Monday on the first floor of the trauma care unit of the State’s largest government-run hospital. Officials said 23 patients were in the ICU at the time. Fire service personnel rushed in and eventually brought the flames under control, while patients were shifted to other wards within the hospital. Eleven staff members suffered burns while trying to rescue patients.
For the families gathered outside, however, the fire was not just an accident. It was the moment hope collapsed. Most attendants had been asleep in corridors, on verandahs, and in open waiting areas when panic began spreading through the hospital. Some woke to shouts and others to the sound of hurried footsteps. Within minutes, relatives of critically ill patients were running from ward to ward, desperately shouting the names of their dear ones, searching for faces, hoping that their loved ones had somehow been saved.
“My brother was on ventilator support, but he was recovering well,” said the younger brother of Ramesh, his voice breaking under the weight of disbelief. “Doctors had told me he would be taken off life support soon. But today, when I started searching for him after the incident, I found his body lying on a stretcher in the medicine department, he said. Krushna Ballav Das, who had brought his 27-year-old son from Balasore after a road accident on Sunday that left the young man with a head injury, could barely stand as he spoke.
“He was doing well. He was recovering,” Das said, crying inconsolably. “When I woke up, I came to know about the fire. I rushed to the hospital only to hear from the staff that my son had died in the fire.” For one woman, the fire has left behind not only grief but an impossible future. A mother of four children, she lost her husband in the blaze. She said she had been sleeping when chaos broke out in the wee hours.
“When I woke up, I saw everybody rushing towards the ICU,” she said. “When I searched for my husband and asked the staff members, they told me to visit another ward. There, I found my husband lying dead on the floor.” In another heart-rending account, a man from West Bengal, who had been undergoing treatment at the trauma centre for the past four days after a brain stroke, was among those killed. His son said he had been sleeping outside the ICU when hospital staff suddenly asked him to move downstairs for safety. “Later, I found my father dead,” he said.
“His body was charred beyond recognition.” The fire, suspected to have been caused by an electrical short circuit, has once again thrown a harsh light on the recurring tragedy of hospital fires in India. Hospitals remain especially vulnerable because of the heavy use of electrical equipment, oxygen systems and the presence of patients who are often immobile or dependent on life-support systems, making evacuation painfully difficult.
The tragedy in Cuttack comes against the backdrop of several such fatal fires across the country. But for the families gathered outside SCB Medical College on Monday, discussions of past incidents offered them no comfort. Their sorrow was intimate, immediate and irreparable. For them, the tragedy was not about systems, regulations or recurring patterns. It was about a brother who was about to recover, a son who was expected to survive, a husband who would never return home, and a father whose face could no longer be corrected.
Read More
