Locked inside: Grief and anger as Pakistan hospital fire kills 14 newborns

A fire, caused by a short circuit in an air-conditioning unit, tore through the critical-care nursery on the third floor of the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS) in Islamabad on the morning of August 26, killing 14 of the 15 newborns inside; only one baby was rescued. Grieving relatives described a chaotic scene with thick black smoke, no visible nursery staff at the time of the fire, and doors that witnesses said were locked -- which hospital executive director Rana Imran Sikander said was a longstanding policy to prevent infant abductions rather than a lapse -- forcing rescuers to break windows and grills to reach the ward; some family members said rescue teams took roughly two hours to arrive, though the hospital and district officials disputed the timeline, saying emergency crews responded within minutes. Witnesses said renovation work had reportedly been underway in the building in recent weeks, though details were unclear.

It was the second such tragedy in roughly two years after an air-conditioning-linked fire killed 11 babies at Sahiwal Teaching Hospital in Punjab in June 2024, and came months after a Karachi shopping mall fire where locked exits also contributed to a high death toll. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif expressed "deep sorrow," ordered an investigation, and suspended federal health secretary Aslam Ghaury; two separate inquiry committees, from the Islamabad district administration and the prime minister's office, were tasked with determining what went wrong. Grieving relatives, including one mother whose three-day-old daughter died, blamed hospital negligence and inadequate fire safety protocols for a ward meant to house the hospital's most vulnerable patients.