Pakistan PM orders suspension of eight officials after hospital fire kills 14 babies

Pakistan’s prime minister has ordered the suspension of eight officials and directed criminal proceedings against them after a fire killed 14 babies in the neonatal ward of a government-run hospital in the capital.

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif issued the orders after an investigative committee presented its interim report on the fire at Islamabad’s Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS), his office said in a statement on Saturday.

The blaze broke out shortly before 7am (02:00 GMT) on Wednesday in the Mother and Child Healthcare Centre, sparking inside the nursery before spreading rapidly through oxygen outlets fitted at each incubator.

The fire was confined to a third-floor nursery, but officials said it spread so quickly that staff were able to rescue only one baby from among the 15 being cared for there.

“The deaths of these innocent children are a heartbreaking tragedy that has left the entire nation grieving,” Sharif said in a statement, promising that those responsible would face “exemplary punishment”.

The eight suspended officials, named in a statement from the prime minister’s office, include the hospital’s executive director, two joint executive directors, the head of its neonatal department, two senior doctors, a security official, and the head of the Capital Development Authority’s emergency services.

Sharif also approved action against a company responsible for hospital security and its officials.

He has appointed the National Institutes of Health’s chief executive as PIMS’s acting director in the interim.

The interim inquiry presented to the prime minister this week found that the hospital had no meaningful fire safety protocols in place, and only two of PIMS’s 13 standard operating procedures addressed fire or emergencies.

The interim report found that supervisory staff were not on duty when the fire started, and only two nurses, a female security guard and a house officer were in the ward.

Emergency services were also not called until six minutes after the fire started, and the first emergency responders arrived 15 minutes after receiving the call, the statement said.

The panel also noted a separate fire had broken out at the hospital’s nursing hostel just a month earlier, without prompting any safety improvements.

One nurse, Razia Noreen, had pulled a child to safety before flames engulfed the ward, the report said. Sharif awarded her the Sitara-i-Khidmat state honour for public service and a cash reward of one million rupees (nearly $3,500) for the rescue, according to the statement.

Health Minister Mustafa Kamal called Pakistan’s health system “rotten” and backed a parliamentary investigation, while the government has pledged five million rupees (about $17,700) in compensation to each affected family.