Play store
Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has ordered the suspension of eight officials over a hospital fire in the capital Islamabad that killed 14 newborn babies.
According to CNN, Sharif also ordered criminal proceedings against those found responsible for the deaths.
The Prime Minister’s Office said the orders were issued after an interim report was submitted by an investigation committee headed by retired senior government official Shahid Khan into the August 26 fire at the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS) hospital.
The fire was confined to a neonatal care room on the third floor of the hospital. However, officials said the blaze spread so rapidly that staff could rescue only one of the 15 babies inside.
The investigation found that the room had neither a fire alarm nor a sprinkler system. It also found that the hospital lacked clear procedures and adequate training for dealing with fires and other emergencies.
The eight suspended officials include the hospital’s executive director, two joint executive directors, the head of the neonatal department, two other doctors, the assistant director of hospital security and the head of the Capital Development Authority’s emergency services department.
The Pakistani government has already announced compensation of 5 million Pakistani rupees for each family that lost a newborn in the fire.
The interim investigation found that officials responsible for supervision were not present at the workplace when the fire broke out. Two nurses, a female security guard and a house officer were in the ward at the time.
The fire service was alerted six minutes after the blaze started and arrived at the scene 15 minutes after receiving the call.
Investigators found that only two of the hospital’s 13 standard operating procedures (SOPs) covered responses to fires or other emergencies.
At a meeting on Saturday, officials were shown around two minutes of CCTV footage of the fire in the neonatal care room. The footage was not immediately released to the public.
According to the interim report, one nurse risked her life to rescue a baby before the flames spread throughout the ward. Sharif has approved a recommendation to honour the nurse with the national award Sitara-i-Khidmat in recognition of her public service.
Following the incident, the Pakistani government has launched a broader review of fire safety measures in hospitals across the country.