Islamabad, hospital fire: at least 14 newborns dead
The fire in the maternity ward of the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences appears to have been caused by an air-conditioner exploding
from our correspondent Marco Masciaga
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NEW DELHI – At least fourteen newborns have died following a fire which broke out on Wednesday in the maternity ward of the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS) in Islamabad. According to a local television channel, there were 16 babies in the ward at the time of the fire; other sources put the figure at 15. Some of them were in incubators, whilst others were connected to oxygen cylinders which exploded on contact with the flames. Emergency services responded to an emergency call made shortly before 7 am local time, which was 4 am in Italia.
According to initial reports, the fire is believed to have broken out as a result of the explosion of an air-conditioning compressor. Rescue workers say they rescued 19 people: ten women, seven children and two men. According to the father of one of the victims, the ward lacked fire safety systems and, at the time of the explosion, all the access doors were locked except for one. Relatives of some of the babies who died in the blaze have complained of delays in the emergency response.
A common occurrence
In Pakistan, fires in large buildings are common, often due to inadequate safety standards and building regulations, as well as poor enforcement of the rules. In January, more than 65 people died in a fire at a shopping centre in the port city of Karachi, where, in 2012, a tragedy claimed the lives of at least 250 workers in a textile workshop inside a building lacking fire escapes.
The fire in Islamabad is one of the most serious ever to have broken out in a hospital in Pakistan, a country with a population of almost 260 million where the public healthcare system suffers from inadequate facilities and a lack of sufficient funds to meet the needs of that vast section of the population who cannot afford to access private healthcare.
Hospital fires are common throughout South Asia: in India, in the state of Maharashtra, three newborns lost their lives a few days ago due to a ventilator malfunction, whilst last March a fire killed ten patients in an intensive care unit at a hospital in Odisha.
