Lessons learnt, high alert in hospitals

Delhi has learnt its lessons from the blasts at Ahmedabad Civil Hospital on July 26 which saw the most casualties among all the blasts that happened in the city that day. As serial blasts rocked the Capital on Saturday evening, Delhi hospitals turned into fortresses with all but one entry sealed, strict enforcement of the one-attendant-one-patient rule and a host of other measures. The management too had improved considerably from the chaos that had prevailed on an equally fateful day on October 29, 2005 when blasts rocked Sarojini Nagar, Kalkaji and Pahargunj. At the AIIMS, the hospital security personnel swung into action and manually checked the dustbins on the campus and all major points and then the campus was sealed. ‘‘The bombs were placed in dustbins in Connaught Place, so we checked all the dustbins in the hospital area and all major points where there was a possibility of finding a bomb. Only the emergency entry is open and that too has been barricaded.