Efficient Solutions for Access, Evacuation, and Fire Safety, Vital for Hospitals in Romania
The Romanian medical system has been severely tested by the COVID-19 pandemic, which revealed its longstanding shortcomings. In addition to the overburdening of medical staff, most healthcare units faced the overuse of existing equipment, sometimes outdated or insufficient, as well as the lack of efficient solutions for access, evacuation, or securing spaces intended for patient care.
However, there were also medical units that understood the need for intelligent investments more than ever, in accordance with the latest and most modern safety and protection standards to minimize contagion and danger risks. Thus, if the solutions proposed by KADRA were until recently considered best practice guidelines, they have now become essential rules. Even during the pandemic, KADRA teams worked intensively on medical infrastructure projects, managing to respond promptly and efficiently to the demands from medical units.
In addition to guaranteeing automatic, safe, and clean access to healthcare spaces, the safety of patients and medical staff in case of fire is of overwhelming importance. Only a complex protection system with both passive and active components can ensure compliance with fire protection standards. Fires in recent years in Romanian medical units have demonstrated the severity of implementing an inappropriate fire protection system or, even worse, the lack of such a system.
The Importance of Efficient Evacuation Routes
A decisive role in saving lives in case of fire is played by evacuation routes. Maintaining them in working condition is achieved by using fire protection doors and fire and smoke protection curtains. KADRA teams have focused their efforts for over 20 years on finding and implementing complete fire protection solutions for access routes. The experience so far has led to a simple conclusion: the safety of patients and hospital staff must be considered from the building design phase. That is why KADRA specialists are in constant contact with builders, architects, and hospital managers to inform them about the most suitable and modern access solutions.
"The solutions proposed by KADRA are like the airbag of a car. When you buy a car, you don't think about the airbag, the seat belts, and generally about safety. However, they are the only ones that can save you in the event of an incident. Thus, when a fire breaks out, the space is flooded with smoke in less than 5 minutes. In fact, 85% of deaths in the event of a fire at the European level are caused by smoke inhalation. The only things that can save us are evacuation corridors and smoke removal from the room, along with fire-resistant closures. If the Colectiv club had had enough doors, without thresholds, with large openings that allowed people to evacuate quickly from the building, today we wouldn't be talking about so many victims and so many people left mutilated for life."
Fire-resistant Doors, Vital in Hospitals
There are efficient solutions that can be quickly implemented to protect the lives of those in hospitals. Among these, fire-resistant doors occupy an important place, part of the Tormed range specially designed by KADRA for hospitals. These are available in metal and wood versions. To be able to speak of a hospital as a safe environment, at European standards, it must be equipped with special fire/smoke protection equipment in case of fire. In this way, the effects of a fire are prevented or reduced as much as possible, and patients and medical staff will be able to leave the building safely.
This “special protection equipment” consists of:
- Fire and Smoke Curtains – solutions that prevent the spread of fire and smoke and secure evacuation routes for people in a building where a fire has broken out, curtains that can protect both corridors and door and window openings and can be used to double the sliding doors of operating rooms;
- fire-resistant doors made of metal and wood – metal fire protection doors are available with one or two leaves, with fire resistance approval for 30, 60, and 90 minutes;
- automatic smoke evacuation hatches;
- automation for doors and windows for air supply;
- automatic doors with break-out systems for emergency evacuation of people.
KADRA is more than a provider of solutions in this sensitive field of fire protection; our teams of specialists offer high-quality and precise consultancy to solve the specific problems of each hospital.
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