Fourteen babies were burned to death in the Mother and Child Healthcare Centre on the third floor of the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS) in Islamabad on August 26. No one really knows the exact time because no one was there.
Yes, no one was there. In the largest public hospital in the capital, in the gynaecology and obstetrics wards, which also have a neonatal nursery care unit for newborns, there wasn’t a single attendant looking after these precious lives. There are no reported adult mothers or staff injured or killed in the fire, which is also very peculiar.
The image of the third floor of PIMS, empty of the teeming crowds we associate with Pakistani hospitals, is unimaginable. But that is what happened. In the middle of the night, something happened, and a locked; yes, locked and bolted neonatal ward, with precious lives inside, was left alone. A fire broke out and burned all of them.
Should we thank God there were only 14 beds or incubators in this unit? Does it matter how the fire broke out, or who is responsible for the safety of these children, when newborn life in Pakistan has little value? No, let me rephrase that more accurately: the value has been determined as Rs. 5 million per baby in compensation to the family. Five million rupees.
I woke up on that Wednesday, with my own medical issue and was at a private hospital getting stitches removed. No matter how much we insulate ourselves, make our circle of safety small and secure, and build a thick wall around ourselves against the pain in the air, suffering manages to seep in.
See no evil, hear no evil. For how long? How does one process the burning of 14 children when they had barely begun their journey through life? What could they have become? What could they have done in life? Instead, all I can imagine is how they must have felt in their last moments. But I don’t go there. I don’t allow myself to imagine the flames, the smoke, the heat, while those babies were alone. Alone.
Where were the nurses, the adults, the doctors, the teeming masses who fill every corridor of every Pakistani hospital? When have we ever seen an empty Pakistani hospital? The reports do not mention a single injury to any nurse, attendant, parent, or doctor. Where the hell were they?
I cannot bear to listen to the obnoxious, soulless Neanderthals who call themselves ministers or officials justifying what happened in the capital of the country. What else do you call a preventable homicide?
Who goes to PIMS? Why is this hospital in such bad condition? Is it really only this public hospital that is in such an inhumane condition? Is it really? Are we going to fool ourselves into believing this so that we can ease some of our already non-existent consciences?
I have had the chance to visit PIMS several times. My father was extremely unwell a few years ago, and two hospitals had given up on his care, so we went to PIMS. I was grateful that they had accepted him. But even then, they had no monitors in the VIP wing or rooms, they did not have enough qualified nurses on call, and the hygiene levels were abysmal. PIMS had no medicines or even basic hospital supplies—tissue boxes, alcohol swabs, bandages, nothing. Everything had to be bought and brought from outside.
I cried in the filthy hallway, overwhelmed by anxiety and fear of losing my father that night. We were lucky that we had the means to shift him to another hospital. But that image and experience of complete helplessness and fear will never leave me. The night before the murder of 14 babies at PIMS, a friend was sharing her recent experience in Murree, which I am sharing as a perfect example of the reality of health facilities across most of Pakistan’s 154 districts.
A boy of less than 10 years old was injured in a bike accident while riding with another underage boy. He tore his ankle and foot. His poor, illiterate father, a widower raising small children, did not know what to do for two whole days.
Where is the social and community knowledge that should step in during health emergencies? A rational question, but perhaps not really, because answering it requires an emotionally educated and ethical environment that genuinely cares about citizens’ welfare.
PIMS is not merely a story about one hospital in Islamabad. It is a window into a healthcare system where inadequate facilities, institutional apathy and the absence of accountability place the most vulnerable lives at risk.
This poor child suffered for two or three days while his helpless father contemplated his options. He did nothing, perhaps in shock, or simply because he was unable to process what he should do. The local Basic Health Unit should have been the first and immediate emergency stop. Why was it not?
Because government institutions are not trusted by the average citizen. Rather, they are feared. They are seen as hubs of corruption and as a further burden rather than as institutions that alleviate the pain and suffering of those most in need.
In this environment, the poor father could only think of going “private”. He spent Rs. 1,000 every day visiting a quack doctor in the bazaar, who merely cleaned—one can only hope and bandaged the wound without prescribing medicines. No antibiotics. No X-rays. Absolutely no proper medical care.
The apathy, disdain and inhumane treatment that we seem to tolerate towards other human beings, even children, says a great deal about the state of mind of Pakistanis. I try to imagine what the normal reaction of a medical practitioner and frankly, anyone should be when they see a person in pain or an injured child.
Instead, the BHU recommended that the father travel farther to Kotli for proper care. At Kotli, he was told they could do nothing and that he should take his young son to Rawalpindi. By now, more than 22 to 25 days had passed.
When I think about this process, I don’t know how to emotionally process it. What kind of nation are we living in? At what stage does the problem begin? A simple, common injury cannot be handled at the village level, by the parents, at the local pharmacy, at an emergency care unit, or by a local physician? What century are we living in?
More importantly, what kind of citizens are we nurturing citizens so disabled by a lack of education and capacity that they are unaware of how to take care of their own basic health needs? Worse still, what happens when they feel there is absolutely no one they can trust to take care of their loved ones in an emergency?
Public-sector hospitals and healthcare facilities have not only failed because of insufficient facilities. They have also failed because of the absence of the critical emotional and social infrastructure of trust and care for our deeply vulnerable communities across Pakistan’s 154 districts. The question is: why? And perhaps an even more important question is: can this be changed?
Have you seen the BBC series Call the Midwife? Watch it. After the Second World War, Britain recognised the need for a National Health Service (NHS). The series is told through the eyes of the first generation of nurses and doctors who cared, for free, for the poor, the uneducated, the destitute and the most vulnerable.
The compassion, dedication and care these health workers showed always made me wonder: how is such compassion developed within a nation? How did educated, well-to-do citizens of England, along with middle-class clinicians, develop such compassion and dedication for the most vulnerable people in their country, people with whom they had absolutely nothing in common other than their shared humanity? Where is that in Pakistan? Is that possible in today’s Pakistan?