There is no greater betrayal than when a sanctuary turns into a death trap. Fire accidents in hospitals that kill the vulnerable would fall squarely in this category. A massive fire that broke out at City Hospital, an orthopaedic specialty unit in Dindigul in south Tamil Nadu, last week caused the death of six people, including a child and two women. All the victims were trapped in the hospital lift and initial reports suggested they died of suffocation. Only one of the six persons, who was on a wheelchair, was an in-patient at the hospital; all the others were visitors. They were trapped, over half an hour, in the lift as the smoke poured in through the vents, all escape routes sealed. The fire, which reportedly started as a short circuit in the ground floor, swept up to the first floor, and smoke soon curled up to all the floors in the four-storey building, affecting patients. Initially, smoke was noticed in the outpatient department, after patient files caught fire. In response, the power supply was shut down, but six persons still entered the lift at the ground floor. In the melee that ensued, no one paid any attention to the lift, stuck in between two floors. Meanwhile, patients on the higher floors struggled to breathe, but for many, because of mobility issues, there was no opportunity to escape. Thirty-two patients were shifted to the nearby Dindigul government hospital for further treatment and three of them needed ventilator support. The rash of fire accidents in hospitals in India, in recent times, and the lives lost are uncanny reminders that hospital infrastructure upkeep, in the private or public health-care sector, is astonishingly low priority across the country. all equipment in hospitals and the hospitals themselves are ready to act and limit damage if, and when, a mechanical fault was to cause a fire.