Pakistan suspends eight officials after hospital fire kills 14 newborns
ISLAMABAD — Pakistan's prime minister has suspended eight officials and ordered criminal proceedings over a hospital fire in the capital that killed 14 babies, following an interim investigation that found serious fire-safety failures at one of the country's most prominent public hospitals.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif issued the orders after receiving the inquiry report on the blaze at the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS), his office said Saturday. The fire broke out Wednesday shortly before 7 a.m. in the Mother and Child Healthcare Centre, igniting in the nursery and spreading rapidly through oxygen outlets attached to each incubator.
The fire was contained to the third-floor nursery, but the speed of the flames left staff able to rescue just one of the 15 newborns being treated there. “The deaths of these innocent children are a heartbreaking tragedy that has left the entire nation grieving,” Sharif said in a statement, vowing that those responsible would face “exemplary punishment.”
The eight suspended officials include PIMS's executive director, two joint executive directors, the head of the neonatal department, two senior doctors, a security official, and the head of the Capital Development Authority's emergency services, according to the prime minister's office. Sharif also approved action against the company responsible for hospital security and named the chief executive of the National Institutes of Health as PIMS's acting director.
The interim inquiry found that PIMS had no meaningful fire-safety protocols, and only two of the hospital's 13 standard operating procedures dealt with fire or emergencies. It also said supervisory staff were not on duty when the fire broke out, and the ward was staffed by only two nurses, a female security guard, and a house officer. Emergency services were not called until six minutes after the fire was detected, and first responders arrived 15 minutes after receiving the call, the report found.
The report also noted that a separate fire had broken out in the hospital's nursing hostel just a month earlier but did not prompt safety improvements. One nurse, Razia Noreen, was cited for pulling a child to safety before flames engulfed the ward. Sharif awarded her the Sitara-i-Khidmat state honor for public service and a cash reward of one million rupees, nearly $3,500, according to the statement.
The disaster has triggered political fallout. 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.
The crisis has also revived broader concerns about emergency preparedness in Pakistan's public hospitals, where overcrowding, aging infrastructure and weak enforcement of building codes have long complicated safety efforts. The PIMS fire is the latest in a series of hospital blazes in the country over the past decade, and the interim findings have drawn renewed attention to the consequences of routine safety gaps in health facilities.