It was just before 7am on Wednesday when the emergency call came in. By the time the fire was finally put out, fourteen newborn babies were dead, some of them barely three days old, in what’s now being called one of the deadliest hospital fires Pakistan has seen in decades. The blaze tore through the Mother and Child Health Ward on the third floor of the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences, the capital’s largest public hospital, and turned a room meant to protect the country’s most fragile patients into something almost too painful to describe.
How the Fire Started
Rescue sources say the fire likely started when an air conditioning compressor exploded inside the nursery where the newborns were being kept. There were fifteen babies in that ward when it happened. Only one made it out, a doctor managed to pull the child free before the flames took over completely. Of the fourteen who didn’t survive, officials from the Islamabad administration said most had been completely burnt. It’s hard to even write that sentence, honestly.
Six fire engines responded, and rescue teams eventually pulled 19 people out of the ward,10 women, seven children, two men, by smashing windows open and ripping off metal grilles just to reach them. But the response itself, by most accounts, was painfully slow. Islamabad’s Chief Commissioner Sohail Ashraf confirmed the emergency call came in just before 7am. Rescue teams, according to reports, didn’t actually reach the scene for almost two hours after that.
Scenes No Parent Should Have to Witness
What’s coming out of PIMS right now is genuinely hard to sit with. Jaweria, a mother who lost her baby in the fire, could barely get her words out through tears. “I do not believe this. Give me my child back,” she said. “Why did the doctors leave the children there?” That question, why, is one a lot of people in Islamabad are asking right now, and nobody’s really answered it yet.
Another witness, Abdul Ghafoor, said he tried to get into the maternity ward to help but was pushed back by thick black smoke. “There were babies as young as one day old,” he said quietly. Several witnesses described finding doors locked in the chaos, and some even claimed hospital guards kept people from leaving the ward while the fire was spreading which, if true, is almost too awful to process. A woman named Muneeba, who happened to be visiting family at the hospital that morning, said she barely got out with her nephew and sister-in-law before the smoke swallowed the corridor.
Hospital’s Response and the Investigation
PIMS Executive Director Rana Imran Sikandar pushed back on some of the criticism, explaining that access to the ward had been deliberately restricted after earlier incidents involving attempted baby kidnappings from the facility. He said the fire safety system in place was satisfactory, and that 24 oxygen cylinders were available in the ward at the time. “Anyone found responsible will be punished,” he said though for grieving parents standing outside the hospital, that promise probably feels distant right now.
An eight-member fact-finding committee has since been formed by the Islamabad Deputy Commissioner, headed by the Additional Deputy Commissioner (General), with representatives pulled from the Capital Development Authority, Islamabad Police, IESCO, PIMS, and Capital Emergency Services. They’ve been asked to figure out what actually caused the fire, whether the fire-safety systems were really functioning the way the hospital claims, and how fast, or how slow, the rescue operation truly was. They have just 24 hours to report back.
A Nation in Mourning
The reaction from the country’s leadership has been swift, and heavy with grief. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said he was “deeply saddened” and ordered an immediate investigation, with his office adding plainly that “those responsible should be identified, and the strictest action should be taken.” President Asif Ali Zardari called it “an extremely heartbreaking and irreparable loss” and urged hospitals across the country to tighten fire-safety and emergency protocols, especially for newborns and other patients who can’t protect themselves.
Finance Minister Ishaq Dar wrote that “no words can ease the pain of losing an innocent child.” PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari called it “an unbearable tragedy” for the whole nation, adding that these babies weren’t just numbers, they were the hope of families who now have almost nothing left to hold onto.
What Happens Now
PIMS has stood at the center of some of Pakistan’s worst emergencies over the years earthquakes, bombings, mass casualties. It’s the place people run to when something terrible happens elsewhere. So there’s something particularly gutting about the fact that, this time, the tragedy happened inside its own walls, in the one ward meant to shelter the newest and most defenseless lives it had. With the committee’s report due within a day, grieving families and honestly, a shaken public well beyond Islamabad, are left waiting to find out whether this was simply an accident nobody could’ve stopped, or a failure that should never have happened in the first place.
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