ELECTRICAL SAFETY in HOSPITALS AND MEDICAL LOCATIONS

Solutions by Cape Electric

Electrical Installation in Hospitals are critical due to its working environment and sensitivity such as:

• WET Areas, where chance of electric shock is high for the patient and the medical staff,

• Oxygen enriched areas, where the chance of fire is high,

• Life supporting equipment connected to patients having applied parts by passing skin,

• Medical electrical equipment or system producing Electro Magnetic Environment (EMI),

• Availability of power and stand by power, change over etc,

• Highly sensitive electronic systems.

The safety measures required are

1. Low touch voltages to avoid shock hazard,

2. Continuity of supply during a fault by an IT supply (called as OT panels),

3. Over current and earth fault protection in oxygen enriched areas. Faster disconnections and avoidance of arc/spark,

4. Protection of electronics from failures such as Temporary over voltage,

5. Electro Magnetic compatibility to ensure displays, sensors and other devices are operating without any distortion,

6. Regular and period maintenance.

The products and services offered by CAPE electric ensure that all these requirements are satisfied, and the installation is in compliance with the code of practice.

• Risk Assessment to ISO 14971,

• Implementation of TN-S system with Protective equipotential bonding and Supplementary equipotential bonding,

• Medical IT panels for group 2 medical locations,

• Periodic Verifications and training of Bio medical engineers,

• Compliance to IEC 62353 of ME and MES,

• EMI and Protection from TOV’s,

• Compliance to IS732 for general electrical safety,

• Compliance to IS17512 for medical locations.

The webinar explained all about shock protection, failure of electronics, electrical safety audits, fire due to short circuits in hospitals, compliance to regulations.

More information is also available at

Read more about various solutions

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Videos of the webinar

Introduction and key note address (part 1)

Main presentation (part 2)

Q&A (part 3)

Detailed Q&A

Questions	Ans
1. Why are the firing cements inside the sir hospitals not checked every month, why is the fire department not responsible for checking them?	It is recommended use Water Mist and not Sprinkler or Clean Agent System. Both the solution will not affect the equipment.
2. How to check my equipment is appropriately earthed or not ?	check the integrity of protective earth conductor.
3. This Separate Earth Pits misbelief needs to be busted in a big balloon	Fully agree
4. What is role of SPD for hospital	It protects electronics from conducted surges & reduces impulse voltages
5. If I am not wrong TN-S system is also used in Normal industrial installation.	​YES. We are supposed to use TN-S in industrial and commercial buildings
if we can build Atomic stations with zero error and Oil and gas Installations with almost zero error why can't we build hospitals with zero error as regards safety? I don't agree with people who claim that the medical charges work out already high and safety costings increase it further	​Yes you are right. If we follow the rules of the code of practices and standards, a high degree of safety is possible.
How we can control electric shock	Make the potential difference "NIL"
How often need to test the earth pits for medical equipment which was earthed	NO need for earth pits for medical equipment. Hence the question of testing itself is not applicable.
Dear Sir, What are the functional Tests which are to be conducted as part of safety audit ? Any Meters are there for Testing These Functional Tests ? Please Explain.	Please refer the standards. It depends upon on the type of installations you want to audit.
Do ELCB. as a practice to be installed in operation theatre equipment also the questions What is the sensitivity of a earth leakage protective device for an endoscopic medical electrical equipment is ELCB still necessary in IT System for OT	​In medical locations of group 2, protection by automatic disconnection of supply by means of residual current protective devices with a rated residual-operating current not exceeding 30 mA shall only be used on the circuits that are supplying only one single equipment: Except those of the medical IT system, additional protection by residual current protective devices with a rated residual operating current not exceeding 30 mA shall be used in all final circuits of medical locations of group 1 with overcurrent protective devices rated 32 A and below and medical locations of group 2.
30m ELCB sufficient to preventing electrical shock	Yes in normal environment. In certain cases RCD with lesser currents are necessary. Also look at the type of connected load and type of SPD to be used.
how much distance is recommended in two earth pits.	Since the webinar is about Hospitals and if the question is about medical locations, please make proper supplementary bonding.
What will be the specific safety measures in child ward, considering fire?	There is no classification like a child ward. Pl refer the requiremnts of group 0 and group 1 location.
UPS output RCCB 100mAmp use to trip without any finding.. what might be reason	Probably the leakage current is high or the RCCB is faulty.
For sensitive medical equipment, what is maximum allowed voltage between N and E.	230 volt + 10 % between N and PE must be OK for medical equipment
In continuation to SPD's ,Some also says that although the equipment are highly sensitive, still this concern is very well taken care by OEM itself. Necessary measures are provided by OEM in equipment designing itself. OEM is not going to rely on your installation for their equipment sensitivity when SPD's are concerned. Which ultimately makes it optional or secondary.	SPD internal in an equipment is to ensure impulse voltage withstand of that equipment. Installation also shall satisfy certain requirements. Most often SPD is necessary at the installation.
IEC 62353 is adopted by BIS. Is it true?	Yes - IS/IEC 62353 : 2014 Medical Electrical Equipment - Recurrent Test and Test after Repair of Medical Electrical Equipment
what you advise for protection against lightning protection?	Install LPS as per IS/IEC 62305 (never use early streamer emission rods)
how can check about lighting arrestor covering range in any building	No ranges are recommended, but an angle (e.g. 45 degrees)
How can we reduce the interference of Electrical magnetic field into Electronic instruments, which can be the cause of error?	Ensure that the recommended EMI mitigation measures are implemented.
When we talk about awareness about earthing or all such similar common misbeliefs, the biggest sector which should be make aware about all these things first is Government Sector like Power Utilities, Inspectorate, CPWD State PWD, PSU's etc. As Utilities dominates the markets. Its necessary to start from them first. And then others. All these Government Departments must and should be attended necessarily for awareness.	Noted the comment
Any Govt. checking on Installation and on regular intervals regarding the Efficiency of Equipment and Quality of Equipment?	NO. It is the responsibility of the user. Electrical inspectorate is responsible for inspection only above notified voltage.
what is OCPD?	Over current Protective device e.g. Fuse, MCB
We saw many electrical panels gland plates top side for electrical cable entries . It gets short circuited due to which water comes from top side. I request you all to change it's top side gland plates from top side to bottom side . Kindly confirm once.	if you use god products as per the recommendations, such damages are not expected. The damage can be of several problems such as quality of gland, bending radius of cable, force on cables, strength of sheet steel in the panel etc.
recently I installed one solar installation the inspection engineer from KSEB wants to replace GI earth pipe with 12mm earth rod he insist and made me to Change what is the intention pla mr gopakumar answer expecting	Sorry we are not aware of such requirement.
You are spearheading electrical safety campaign for last one year through numerous webinars. How much improvement you observe during your inspections/audits and if not much what is the way forward for improvements. please	​Slowly things are changing. Now a days lot of managements are interested in improving their systems. But the cooperation from electrical engineers are critical.
What are your thoughts about Earthing provision for Pole Mounted Dist Trafo of 100kVA to 500kVA, where power utilities or even others Specify 6-7 Nos of Earth Pipe or Multiple earthing Pipe/Rods? What could be the correct way of earthing at such sites of a Typical Dist Trafo Installation (Pole Mounted), if as per you said multiple earthing pipes is not a standard method? And why it is not still implemented by even Power utilities?	There nothing like "CORRECT METHOD". Several correct methods are available. First is to understand the kind of LV distribution (such as TN-C, TN-S, TN-C-S, TT .. etc), then the methods implemented at consumer premise for safety and finally the voltage due to fault in HV system to be reduced to less than 1200 volts (max duration 5 seconds). The system is different for distribution companies and a consumer who have his own transformer. For a consumer with own transformer, a TN-S system is recommended, where multiple earth pipes are not necessary.