By Staff Reporter
ISLAMABAD: Fourteen infants died early Wednesday when a fire tore through the newborn nursery of Pakistan’s largest public hospital in Islamabad, an inferno that investigators say began with an exploding air conditioner and was fed by oxygen equipment keeping the youngest patients alive.
The blaze broke out shortly before 7 a.m. on the third floor of the Mother and Child Hospital, part of the sprawling Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences complex, according to the Islamabad district administration. Sixteen newborns were in the nursery at the time, hospital officials said; only two survived.
Television footage showed rescue workers scaling ladders to reach the ward through broken windows, smashing glass to pull victims and equipment from the building as smoke poured from the third floor. Outside, a woman wept while a man cleared shards of glass from two shattered windows, even as security guards remained posted at the hospital’s main entrance.
Health Minister Mustafa Kamal told local media that the fire started when the compressor of an air conditioning unit exploded inside the ward, where infants lay in incubators or connected to oxygen. The oxygen tanks, he said, turned what might have been a containable fire into something far more lethal.
“The fire spread very quickly, and the hospital’s electricity also went out immediately with the explosion,” Kamal said. He said the blaze was brought under control before it could spread beyond the ward, but not before claiming 14 young lives. Speaking from Karachi, where he was travelling from at the time of the fire, Kamal said PIMS’s executive director remained at the scene and in constant contact with him, along with the hospital secretary and officials from the Ministry of Health.
The Capital Development Authority’s fire department said crews reached the hospital within seven minutes of the alarm, deploying six fire engines — including tenders designated FS-01 and FS-05 — and four ambulances. Firefighters completed cooling operations and a structural assessment once the flames were extinguished.
Dr. Aneeza Jalil, a PIMS spokesperson, told the newspaper Dawn that at least one infant was pulled from the ward alive by a doctor.
Malik Israr, whose niece had recently given birth and was a patient in the ward, said the tragedy was compounded by construction work, he said, that had been underway in the building where the nursery was housed. He described a chaotic scene as staff ordered patients to evacuate.
“After the fire erupted, they told patients to vacate the building,” Israr told Dawn. “Women who had just given birth had to rush down the stairs from the second floor.”
Rescue workers who responded to the scene described the hospital’s fire-safety infrastructure as badly lacking. There was no water available at the fire point, according to rescue sources, and couplings needed to connect fire hoses were missing. Emergency evacuation routes, the sources said, had been locked. Parents at the hospital alleged that no doctors or ward staff were present in the incubation unit when the fire broke out — an account rescue sources corroborated.
PIMS, founded in 1985, is Islamabad’s largest public hospital and among the oldest medical institutions in Pakistan’s capital, encompassing multiple constituent hospitals and teaching programs. Fire safety advocates have long pointed to Pakistan’s spotty enforcement of building codes as a persistent hazard in large public buildings, hospitals among them.
Investigation ordered
The Islamabad district administration moved quickly to open an inquiry, forming an eight-member fact-finding committee chaired by the additional deputy commissioner general. Its membership spans the director general of Capital Emergency Services, the superintendent of City police station, the assistant commissioner for the Industrial Area, a director general from the Capital Development Authority’s electrical and mechanical wing, and representatives from PIMS and the Islamabad Electric Supply Company.
The panel has been directed to determine the precise cause of the fire, assess whether functioning fire-safety systems were in place, and evaluate how quickly and effectively rescue crews responded. A report is due within 24 hours, according to the administration’s notification. The ward itself was sealed off following the fire.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif summoned an emergency meeting at the Prime Minister’s Office, calling in relevant officials and the heads of concerned institutions to determine accountability, according to people familiar with the meeting. In public remarks, Sharif called the deaths of children in the fire “unbearable.”
“The circumstances that led to the incident should be thoroughly reviewed, those responsible should be identified, and the strictest possible action should be taken,” Sharif said, according to a statement from his office, which added that he had offered condolences to the bereaved families.
President Asif Ali Zardari also issued condolences, calling the loss of life “heartbreaking and an irreparable loss” and calling for accountability “in accordance with the law.” He urged hospitals nationwide to guarantee effective fire safety and emergency preparedness, particularly for the protection of newborns.
The Pakistan Medical Association, in a statement, said it was in “deep mourning” and laid blame on what it called administrative failure and lapses in regulatory oversight that “turned these institutions into danger zones.” The association demanded action against officials it said failed to uphold safety codes, along with an immediate restructuring of the health regulatory bodies responsible for enforcing building codes and emergency infrastructure in hospitals. It also called for full legal, financial and emotional support for the grieving families.
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