Parliament committee doubts AC spark caused fire that killed 14 babies at Pakistan hospital

ISLAMABAD: A parliamentary health committee on Thursday expressed doubts that a spark from an air-conditioner was the cause of a fire at a state-run hospital in Islamabad that killed 14 newborn babies.

The incident occurred on Wednesday in the gynaecology ward of the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS), sparking anger over the failure of authorities to save the newborns.

The National Assembly's health committee, led by its chairman Mahesh Kumar, made an unofficial visit to PIMS to ascertain the cause of the tragedy.

Kumar told reporters that CCTV footage did not establish that the AC was the source of the fire, while possible faults in the oxygen pipeline and electrical wiring were being examined, The Express Tribune reported.

Kumar said committee members were told that a spark from an old AC had triggered the fire, but the unit had not been working for a long time. They were also told that the two other ACs in the nursery were portable.

More importantly, he said, neither the staff present at the time nor the CCTV footage could establish where the spark had originated.

“We have reached the conclusion that the source of the fire was not known to anyone,” Kumar said.

He said the committee had asked the PIMS executive director whether CCTV footage showed the fire starting from the old AC, but the answer was no.

The committee therefore wanted to establish whether the fire could instead have originated in the electrical wiring or oxygen pipeline.

Kumar said the speed with which the fire spread made the oxygen supply an important part of the investigation.

“The fire spread within one minute, so oxygen could have been a catalyst,” he said. “Either there was a fault in the oxygen pipe, or there was something wrong with the wiring.”

The chairman said the committee had heard different versions from doctors and nurses about what happened in the nursery. Nurses on duty told members they had been working when the fire suddenly broke out, leaving them unable to say where the initial spark had come from.

“No one saw where the spark came from and how it happened,” Kumar said.

The committee also questioned why newborns had been kept in the old nursery. Kumar said the building dated back to 1990 and that PIMS had a newer block where, in the committee's view, the nursery should have been located.

“In our opinion, this nursery was not built to keep these children. There was supposed to be a gynae ward here, and the children had to be kept in the new, well-equipped block.”

He said the committee had put a number of questions to the hospital authorities and would assess their answers before determining responsibility.

Kumar said the health committee members had visited PIMS unofficially and he would ask National Assembly Speaker Ayaz Sadiq to convene a formal meeting urgently.

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif earlier formed a government inquiry committee that would submit its findings within 24 to 48 hours.

Sharif also suspended Health Secretary Muhammad Aslam Ghauri as pressure mounted on the government to establish the cause of the fire, fix responsibility and hold those responsible accountable.