A technical fault may have caused the fire at the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences that killed 14 infants, officials of the National Assembly’s Standing Committee on National Health Services said Thursday. The discovery came a day after Health Minister Mustafa Kamal blamed a spark in an air conditioner for the fire on Wednesday. The standing committee chairperson, Mahesh Kumar Malani, told reporters in Islamabad that the committee still has to ascertain whether the fire was due to negligence or a natural cause, but a technical fault now looks likely.
Key Points
- 14 infants died Wednesday in a fire at PIMS’s Mother and Child Hospital nursery
- NA committee says source of fire remains unknown, contradicting the AC-spark explanation
- Nursery was built in 1990 and should not have housed babies, committee says
- PM Shehbaz forms inquiry committee, removes federal Health Secretary Muhammad Aslam Ghauri
- Multiple committee members demand health minister and PIMS executive director resign
“The source of the fire has not been confirmed,” said Malani. Some reports said a spark from an old air conditioner started it, but that unit hadn’t been used in some time, he said. The nursery also had two other air conditioners, both portable. A bundle of wires may have caused the spark, a doctor told the committee. The fire started suddenly, but no one saw where it began, said nurses. “No one saw where the spark came from. “We have come to the conclusion that no one knows the source of the fire,” Malani said. Earlier statements have suggested that the fire spread rapidly because of oxygen in the nursery, but a fault in the oxygen pipes remains a possibility, he said. The spark probably didn’t start with the air conditioner, even the hospital’s executive director now agrees, he said. “But there was a fault somewhere,” Malani said, pointing at the oxygen pipes or the electrical wiring as the likely source.
“One thing is final, no one knows the source of the fire”, Mahesh Kumar Malani reiterated, adding that the hospital’s executive director also agreed that the spark had not originated from the air conditioner.https://t.co/yh6yRPfbsm
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Committee says nursery should never have existed
Malani also had a more structural concern. He said the nursery where the fire started was built in 1990 and should never have housed babies in the first place, especially with a new block built elsewhere on the premises. The nursery was not baby-friendly. This was meant to be a gynae ward, and the babies should have stayed in the new block, which he said was well-equipped.
The committee has asked the hospital administration several specific questions. Gul Asghar Khan, the Istehkam-i-Pakistan Party’s MNA, said the committee asked how many times fire drills were conducted at the PIMS and when the last one was conducted. Members also asked for information on the hospital’s last fire audit and whether any human error may have contributed to the incident. PPP MNA Shazia Sobia Aslam Soomro said the committee wanted to know specifically if the fire alarms at the hospital were working properly.
Committee Members Criticize Staff Accounts
Some committee members directly challenged the explanations given by hospital staff. Soomro pointed to what she called contradictory statements saying that either nobody was on duty at the time of the fire or the staff on duty had gone outside. She called for the resignation of the PIMS executive director and the health minister on moral grounds.
Committee member Farakh Khan questioned if the nursery had been maintained regularly. “If there was any maintenance done, why do we still have an old air conditioning unit in the room and why is the wiring exposed?” she asked. “Just shut the nursery if they can’t run it properly,” she suggested.
Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl MNA Aliya Kamran went a step further, saying it seemed the nurses had been coached on what to tell the committee. She said the staff left the infants alone when the fire started and was unhappy with the explanation from the doctor on duty. Kamran said there was a conscious effort to push the narrative that the fire started from the air conditioner and demanded the resignation of the health minister. “If he is in power, then the inquiry team will not be able to be transparent,” she said, adding that the staff on duty should be suspended and their medical licenses revoked.
“Technical experts should be called in to determine what actually happened,” Malani said. He said he himself was confused by some of the accounts, including the suggestion an oxygen cylinder may have exploded. ‘But there weren’t any oxygen cylinders,’ he said. ‘How could one have exploded?’ The committee also asked for details of the budget of the Mother and Child Health Care Center, including how much of it was actually spent and records of how often the oxygen and electrical systems were inspected.
What went down on Wednesday Morning
A fire in the nursery ward of PIMS’s Mother and Child Hospital claimed the lives of 14 babies on Wednesday. Health Minister Mustafa Kamal initially said the fire began with a spark from an air conditioner, but grieving families said rescue teams came too late.
A hospital statement said the fire started with a spark inside the nursery at 6:38 am. The statement said oxygen points at each incubator ignited a massive fire within seconds. Two doctors and two nurses on duty in the nursery responded immediately and called security staff who twice tried to enter and remove babies from the ward. A little after 6:39 a.m., a big explosion rocked the building, and part of the ceiling collapsed.
Witnesses with blackened hands and faces from smoke told AFP they waited for hours for emergency services to reach them. Some said they had to smash windows to reach the ward, and some doors were locked, a claim both the government and hospital have denied.
Government Response To Date
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif immediately took notice of the incident, constituted an inquiry committee, and removed the federal health secretary, Muhammad Aslam Ghauri, from his post. In another development, the Islamabad district magistrate issued a notification to constitute a seven-member fact-finding committee, chaired by the additional deputy commissioner general, to probe the causes of the fire.
Health Minister Kamal told reporters Wednesday he will appear before his superiors for accountability. “We have experts and multiple institutions, including my own ministry, looking into the incident,” he said, promising that all the facts would eventually come to light. The incident has sparked outrage on both sides of the political aisle, with lawmakers from both parties now demanding accountability from hospital leadership and government officials.
