India Hospital Fire

http://news.yahoo.com/fire-indian-hospital-kills-89-staff-flees-150911718.html

So, for my last ethics article I noticed this terrible failure in ethical standards in the news today. Essentially what happened was that the hospital was not up to code, did not have adequate fire extinguishers, was not accessible to fire trucks. This is bad enough when a fire breaks out and there are many issues with the ethics of the hospital administrators for that (even though it is the social norm.) Beyond that is the issue of what happened at the actual fire.

According to the news, hospital administrators were the first to get out of the building when the fire happened. They did not even attempt to help those who were sick. Nurses and doctors left too. A few patients were helped, but according to the release nearly 90 died because they couldn't get out of the smoke. Many of them were in the hospital for minor issues, including one with an infection and another with only a sprained ankle.

I can totally imagine the script that ran through the admins heads. Alarm goes off, leave the building. Its probably not that big of a fire, maybe its just a drill right? I can see that none of the other hospitals had their buildings up to code either, this particular hospital was said to be one of the better ones.

But I can't see myself ever just leaving someone helpless in a burning building to die when I could get in there after them. I don't think the security guards could have stopped me either.