Pakistan Suspends 8 After Fire Kills Newborns
Pakistan Suspends 8 After Fire Kills Newborns
The News
Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Saturday ordered eight officials suspended and criminal proceedings opened over a fire that killed 14 newborns at a hospital in Islamabad, his office said.
The blaze tore through the nursery at the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences on Wednesday. Fifteen newborns were in the ward. Staff got only one out.
An interim inquiry found the nursery had no fire alarm and no sprinkler system.
Timeline
a separate fire hit the hospital's nursing hostel. The inquiry found it triggered no safety improvements.
fire breaks out in the nursery. Six minutes pass before anyone calls emergency services; responders arrive 15 minutes after that. Fourteen of the 15 newborns die.
Punjab province orders immediate fire-safety reviews at all of its hospitals.
Sharif suspends eight officials, orders criminal proceedings against those found responsible, and the government pledges 5 million rupees, about $18,000, to each bereaved family.
Reactions
Health Minister Mustafa Kamal called Pakistan's health system "rotten" and backed a parliamentary investigation.
The interim inquiry pointed at a systemic failure rather than a single mistake: of the hospital's 13 standard operating procedures, only two addressed fire or emergencies at all, and emergency training was found inadequate.
Al Jazeera reported the inquiry's central finding as a lack of fire safety protocols at what is one of Pakistan's flagship public hospitals.
What's Next
Criminal and departmental proceedings are set to move against the eight suspended officials and a private security firm.
What ignited the fire has not been publicly confirmed in the interim report. Whether charges are ultimately filed, and against whom, has not been determined.
The scope and timeline of the final inquiry report have not been disclosed.
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