‘Give me my child back’: Parents’ anguish after Islamabad hospital fire

Dubai: “For two hours I kept crying and wailing.”

Jaweria had lost her newborn in the fire that swept through a maternity ward at Islamabad’s biggest public hospital. As families gathered outside on Wednesday, her grief turned to anger over why help had not come sooner.

“Rescue teams arrived too late,” she told AFP.

Then came the plea of a mother struggling to comprehend what had happened.

“Give me my child back.”

Fourteen infants died in the blaze at the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS). Of the 15 babies in the ward, only one survived — saved by a doctor, PIMS spokeswoman Dr Aneeza Jalil told Dawn.

Several witnesses told AFP that emergency help took hours to arrive, that people smashed windows and broke through doors themselves and that patients were trapped amid thick black smoke.

Authorities dispute those accounts and insist there was no delay in the emergency response.

For Khurram Mehmood, 40, the morning began with his three-day-old daughter inside the hospital.

It ended with him waiting outside knowing she would never come home.

“The fire erupted at 6am, rescue and authorities reached at 9am, people were helping themselves,” he told AFP.

“I lost my daughter. She was only three days old.”

His wife was evacuated from the ward.

“We were sitting on the road waiting for help,” he said.

Witnesses described desperate attempts by ordinary people to reach those inside as smoke engulfed the building.

“There was thick black smoke inside and patients were trapped,” eyewitness Abdul Ghafoor told AFP.

He said he went inside hoping to rescue as many people as possible but could not reach the ward where patients were trapped.

“The fire was in the nursing room, and we could not see anything,” he said. “Some of us broke the windows to help people get out.”

Another witness, whose sister-in-law and baby were in the ward, alleged that guards were preventing people from leaving.

“People had to break the door down and rescue teams had to break the windows to control the fire,” she told AFP.

The accounts add to questions about safety arrangements at the hospital.

Dawn reported that Mudasir, another parent who lost his child, alleged all doors to the ward except one were shut and there was “no fire security” inside.

Malik Israr, whose niece was admitted to the gynaecology ward, told Dawn that women who had just given birth had to rush down stairs after patients were ordered to evacuate.

He also questioned why the nursery was operating in a building where repair and renovation work was underway.

Jaweria’s questions went beyond the emergency response.

“Why did the doctors leave the children there?” she asked AFP, alleging that medical personnel were absent from the ward.

“My demand is, I want justice.”

Officials say the blaze was triggered by an air conditioner.

PIMS spokeswoman Aneeza Jalil told AFP that an electrical fault caused the fire and that it sparked from an AC. Health Minister Mustafa Kamal told Geo News that the infants were either in incubators or receiving oxygen and that oxygen tanks exacerbated the blaze.

There were 15 babies in the ward and one was saved by a doctor, Jalil told Dawn.

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has ordered an investigation and removed federal Health Secretary Muhammad Aslam Ghauri, Dawn reported. A high-level committee has also been established to investigate the tragedy.

A separate fact-finding committee has been given 24 hours to determine the exact cause of the blaze, whether adequate fire-safety systems were functioning and whether the rescue and firefighting response was effective.

Those findings will have to address the starkly different accounts of Wednesday morning: authorities saying emergency teams responded immediately, and parents and witnesses saying they waited desperately for help.

For the families, however, the investigation is no longer simply about how a fire started.

It is about whether 14 newborn lives could have been saved.

And for Jaweria, the questions are painfully personal.

“Why were they not there?” she asked of the medical staff.

“Give me my child back.”