Fire prevention in state hospitals

Abstract

Although much space has been devoted herein to the physical aspects of fire prevention in a hospital for mental patients, attention is drawn again, in closing, to the administrative features of an effective program for guarding against this hazard. A knowledge of what to do, as well as when and how to do it, is of course of primary importance. The human factor, however, is large in the operation of an institution, and many strong links in the chain of a fire prevention program will be of no avail if a weaker link fails to do its work. For this reason, the matter of personnel instruction must be emphasized; this is on the assumption that there will be a genuine feeling of responsibility among all those employees and staff members who form the line of defense against fire. There must be no haphazard management of responsibilities; each person must know his particular duty, and must have the initiative to carry out his part of the work. In this phase of institution operation, no less than in any other, there should be no tendency to shift responsibilities, for it is in the process of shifting that one seemingly insignificant detail may be overlooked, with resulting disaster.