41% of Nursing Homes in Gyeonggi-do Vulnerable to Fires... Gyeonggi Fire Department Announces Comprehensive Survey Results

[Asia Economy (Suwon) = Reporter Lee Young-gyu] It has been revealed that 4 out of 10 nursing homes in Gyeonggi-do face serious accident risks in the event of a fire.

The Gyeonggi Fire and Disaster Headquarters announced on the 13th that from October to December last year, they conducted a comprehensive safety inspection by deploying a total of 1,933 personnel to 1,111 nursing homes and 1,169 buildings within the province, and found fire-related defects, large and small, in 461 locations, accounting for 41.49%.

The main issues pointed out include ▲ failure to appoint a fire safety management assistant ▲ poor circuit continuity in automatic fire detection systems ▲ absence of fire doors ▲ illegal building extensions and changes in use ▲ inappropriate capacity of electrical leakage breakers ▲ defective generator batteries ▲ malfunctioning gas alarm shutoff devices ▲ improper piping and valves, among others.

The Gyeonggi Fire Headquarters took administrative actions against the nursing homes found in violation, including filing charges (2 cases), imposing fines (3 cases), notifying relevant institutions (65 cases), issuing corrective orders (1,589 cases), and on-site corrections (19 cases).

A representative from the Gyeonggi Fire Headquarters emphasized, "Most inpatients in nursing homes are elderly patients with limited mobility, making self-evacuation difficult in case of fire, raising concerns about large-scale casualties. The most important thing is thorough maintenance and management of fire safety and other safety facilities in daily life, and appropriate initial response such as guiding early evacuation by personnel in case of emergency."

Earlier, in October last year, the Gyeonggi Fire Headquarters conducted a full inspection of 347 locations and 382 buildings, imposing fines, notifying institutions, issuing corrective orders, and making on-site corrections.

Meanwhile, the Gyeonggi Fire Headquarters plans to propose institutional improvements to related departments such as the Ministry of Health and Welfare, including limiting the number of floors to three or fewer when installing nursing hospitals and nursing homes in complex buildings, and requiring the installation of simple sprinkler systems even in small nursing homes under 300㎡.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.