A major fire at a maternity hospital in Islamabad, Pakistan, has claimed the lives of 14 newborn babies.
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The incident occurred in the early hours of Wednesday morning, when flames engulfed a maternity unit at the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS), one of the capital’s main public hospitals.
There were 15 babies in the ward, but only one survived. Family members said efforts to rescue the newborns were delayed and that some of them were trapped inside.
Witnesses claimed the doors were locked and had to be broken down. The BBC reported that rescue teams also used windows to enter the building.
Preliminary suspicions are that the fire started in an air-conditioning unit on the third floor of the mother and child ward.
Family members have raised serious concerns about fire safety measures. They claim the building did not have adequate emergency exits and that some staff were absent from the ward when the incident occurred.
One of the fathers who lost his baby said that during the eight days he had visited the ward, he had noticed that the building lacked “fire safety and adequate exits.”
However, the hospital’s executive director, Rana Imran Sikander, rejected the claim that the ward door had been locked. He explained that the entrance was guarded by staff to prevent babies from being stolen.
