ISLAMABAD: An official fire report reviewed by Arab News on Thursday has found inadequate safety arrangements and locked or obstructed emergency exits at a major state-run hospital in Islamabad where a blaze killed 14 newborns, as records raise questions over why emergency services were first alerted 16 minutes after the fire began.
The fire broke out at about 6:38 a.m. on Wednesday in the third-floor nursery of the Mother and Child Hospital at the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS), according to the hospital. The CDA fire incident report records the first emergency call at 6:54 a.m., a crew being dispatched at 6:55 a.m. and the first responders reaching the hospital at 7:01 a.m.
The report does not explain why the first emergency call was recorded 16 minutes after PIMS says the blaze began. Multiple government investigations are now examining the cause of the fire, fire-safety measures, staffing and the emergency response at one of Pakistan’s largest public hospitals.
“Fire and life-safety arrangements were inadequate [and] compromised, not as per standard requirements,” said the report by the CDA’s Directorate of Emergency and Disaster Management, seen by Arab News.
“Emergency exits/escape routes were found permanently locked from outside / obstructed,” it said, adding that hospital security staff “created hindrance to the initial response of the fire crew.”
Those findings conflict with an account issued by PIMS after the fire, which said all emergency exits were “fully open and operational.” The hospital also said two doctors and two nurses on duty inside the nursery responded immediately, called security staff and twice tried to reach the babies before a large blast occurred at 6:39 a.m.
PIMS has said one baby was rescued from the nursery and four from an adjacent room, while 14 newborns died. It said staff also evacuated three mothers and 73 patients from an adjoining gynecology ward.
The CDA report lists seven babies as dead and seven as evacuated alive, alongside 10 women and two men rescued. It does not explain the discrepancy between the seven deaths it records and the final toll of 14 newborns confirmed by PIMS and the government, or whether its figures cover only casualties handled by CDA rescue personnel.
The report lists an “electric short circuit / plug overload” as the probable cause of the fire, but the precise cause remains under investigation.
The chairman of the National Assembly Standing Committee on National Health Services has questioned an earlier account that linked the fire to an air conditioner, saying CCTV footage showed the unit was switched off.
“The nursery was not fit for the babies,” Dr. Mahesh Kumar Malani, chairman of the committee, told reporters after the panel visited PIMS on Thursday afternoon, pointing out that the unit occupied an aging structure while a newer block nearby remained underutilized.
The role of the hospital’s oxygen system is also under investigation. PIMS said in its preliminary account that a spark was followed within seconds by a massive fire because oxygen points were installed at each incubator.
The hospital said two doctors and two nurses were inside the nursery when the fire began and that staff used 35 fire extinguishers in an attempt to contain the blaze.
RESPONSE TIMELINE
The timing of the emergency response has emerged as a central question in the aftermath of the deaths.
Wahab, the attendant of a patient who was safely outside the nursery, was identified with a single name along with the Islamabad deputy commissioner’s office as a caller in the CDA incident report.
He told Arab News that patients’ attendants and hospital staff had already been struggling to reach the nursery through thick black smoke before emergency responders arrived.
“I went inside twice, but the conditions were impossible,” Wahab told Arab News in a telephone conversation. “The smoke was so intense that it choked my throat. Nothing was visible.”
The CDA report says the first responding crew encountered “heavy” smoke on arrival. It records further deployments from several fire stations between 7:06 a.m. and 7:25 a.m., with six fire tenders, six ambulances, a rescue van and a water bowser ultimately deployed.
The report describes the official response time as six minutes, measured from the 6:55 a.m. dispatch to the recorded 7:01 a.m. arrival.
Firefighters used ladders to enter through a rear gallery and carry out rescue operations, according to officials.
The CDA report also cited “inadequate crowd management” at the site.
Fire safety expert Muhammad Amir Chohan, who visited PIMS after the blaze, said highly sensitive areas such as neonatal wards should have automatic fire-suppression systems and trained staff capable of quickly isolating oxygen and other gas supplies during an emergency.
“In technical, highly sensitive areas like a newborn ward, there must be an automatic fire suppression system,” Chohan told Arab News.
“A small fire can convert into a big fire in just three minutes,” he said.
Arab News could not independently establish whether the specific suppression systems cited by Chohan are required under regulations applicable to the PIMS nursery.
FAMILIES SEEK ANSWERS
Families of the newborns have accused hospital authorities of failing to respond adequately as the fire spread.
“If my baby had died of an illness, it wouldn’t have hurt this much,” said Mudassir Zohrab, whose newborn daughter died in the fire.
Zohrab said he spent around 90 minutes searching for his daughter before finding her in the mortuary.
Parents and a hospital staff member shared with Arab News photographs of five babies who died in the fire. Arab News had the images reviewed by Dr. Summaiya Syed Tariq, Karachi’s chief police surgeon and a forensic medicine specialist, who said the bodies showed “superficial to deep burns.”
PIMS has said the newborns died from suffocation. Arab News could not independently determine their medical causes of death, and the circumstances surrounding the deaths remain under investigation.
The disaster comes months after Islamabad authorities identified widespread shortcomings in fire-safety compliance across the capital. A 2026 survey of 6,500 public and private buildings, including 300 government facilities, found most had not obtained approval for fire-safety plans or been issued completion and fire-safety certificates, according to the CDA.
The fire has intensified scrutiny of health care regulation and safety standards in the Pakistani capital. Parliamentary bodies, including the Taskforce on Sustainable Development Goals and the Caucus on Child Rights, have demanded independent probes into safety protocols, neonatal care standards and evacuation procedures.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif appointed a high-level inquiry committee headed by former federal secretary Shahid Khan to investigate the incident. The panel visited PIMS on Thursday and was directed to submit preliminary recommendations within 48 hours and a full report within five days.
Sharif also suspended Federal Health Secretary Aslam Ghauri following the fire.
His successor, acting Health Ministry Secretary Captain (retired) Muhammad Mahmood, declined to address specific questions about possible administrative failures while the investigation was underway.
“I don’t think I’m in a position to comment on this, and neither should I, because there is a dedicated committee, which is very credible and competent, that has been assigned this task,” Mahmood told Arab News, adding that any administrative negligence would be addressed in the final findings.
The hospital’s executive director and the health minister Syed Mustafa Kamal did not immediately respond to Arab News questions about the emergency response, exit policies, staffing levels and fire-safety compliance.
PIMS has said the incident is being investigated “transparently” and that the findings of multiple probes are awaited.
