By Sumayya
ISLAMABAD — Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Saturday ordered the suspension of eight officials and directed that criminal proceedings be initiated against those found responsible for a fire that killed 14 newborns at an Islamabad hospital, his office said.
Sharif issued the orders after an investigative committee headed by retired senior civil servant Shahid Khan presented its interim report on Wednesday’s fire at the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences, or PIMS, his office said in a statement.
The fire was confined to a third-floor nursery but officials said it spread so quickly that staff were able to rescue only one baby from among the 15 being cared for there.
The inquiry found that the nursery had no fire alarm or sprinkler system and that the hospital lacked detailed procedures and training for responding to fires and other emergencies, the statement said.
The fire has intensified public anger, prompting grieving families and civil society groups to demand accountability.
“Those guilty of criminal negligence deserve no leniency,” Sharif was quoted as saying.
He ordered departmental and criminal proceedings against those identified by the committee.
The eight included the hospital’s executive director, two joint executive directors, the head of the neonatal department, two other doctors, the hospital’s assistant director for security and the head of the Capital Development Authority’s emergency services.
Sharif also approved action against a company responsible for hospital security and its officials.
The federal administration has concurrently declared a financial compensation package of 5 million rupees (approximately US$18,000) for each mourning household.
The official dispatch noted that the preliminary investigation revealed that administrative supervisory personnel were absent from their posts when the blaze initially ignited. Two staff nurses, a female protection guard, and a junior medical house officer were the only individuals stationed inside the medical wing.
Emergency rescue operations were not officially contacted until six full minutes had transpired following the onset of the blaze, and the initial crisis management teams arrived at the scene 15 minutes after receiving the emergency alert, the official brief detailed.
Inquiry agents discovered that a mere two subclauses of the healthcare facility’s 13 institutional standard operating protocols contained any reference to fire hazards or alternative emergency scenarios.
Approximately two minutes of internal closed-circuit television security footage tracking the nursery blaze was projected during the high-level Saturday assembly. The recorded visual material was not immediately distributed to the public arena.
The introductory tracking document stated that a dedicated nurse actively endangered her own life to successfully rescue an infant before the thermal front engulfed the entire medical wing. Sharif endorsed an administrative proposal that she be formally decorated with the Sitara-i-Khidmat, a prestigious national civilian medal acknowledging exceptional public service.
The fatal outcomes have sparked comprehensive structural evaluations of fire-prevention protocols across medical institutions throughout Pakistan. The provincial government of Punjab, which stands as the state’s most densely inhabited territory, issued a directive this week demanding an immediate, comprehensive audit of fire-suppression networks, active firefighting apparatus, and emergency-management infrastructure inside all local medical centers.
Sharif had previously terminated the employment of Federal Health Secretary Aslam Ghauri, who functioned as the Health Ministry’s most senior civil service executive, immediately following the outbreak of the blaze.
The catastrophic blaze ranks among Pakistan’s most fatal modern disasters directly involving adolescent populations. Previously in June, 14 young school students lost their lives when the upper concrete canopy of an educational tutoring facility undergoing structural expansion suddenly gave way in the eastern metropolitan city of Lahore.
