Islamabad: At least 17 fires have been reported at public and private hospitals in Pakistan since 2012, killing at least 41 people, including 33 newborns and infants, and injuring dozens of patients, hospital workers and others, an examination of documented incidents has found.
The actual number may be higher as Pakistan has no central public registry of fires at health facilities and many smaller incidents are reported only locally. The available record points to recurring failures in electrical safety, air-conditioning systems, equipment maintenance, firefighting arrangements and emergency evacuation.
The fire at the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences’ (PIMS) Mother and Child Health ward in Islamabad on Wednesday, in which at least 14 newborns died, is the deadliest documented hospital fire in Pakistan in at least 14 years.
Before the PIMS tragedy, the highest toll was recorded at Sahiwal Teaching Hospital in June 2024, where 11 infants died after a fire in the paediatric ward. Inquiries found that fire extinguishers were expired or non-functional and that standard procedures were not followed while the infants were shifted during the emergency.
The fire was reported to have begun after a short circuit in the ward’s air-conditioning system. Punjab Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz later ordered action against senior hospital officials after reviewing inquiry reports and video evidence.
In June 2012, seven newborns were killed when a fire broke out in the nursery of Services Hospital Lahore. More than a dozen other infants were severely burnt, while initial reports attributed the fire to a short circuit.
Services Hospital suffered another serious fire in June 2020, when flames broke out in the operation theatre of its multi-storey surgical emergency building. One woman died and eight others, including doctors, paramedics and patients, suffered injuries as patients were evacuated.
At Karachi’s National Institute of Child Health (NICH), a newborn girl died in January 2020 when an incubator caught fire. Police and a health department inquiry linked the incident to an electrical spark or short circuit.
The inquiry found that the fire was brought under control within minutes and other children were shifted to safety, but the newborn inside the affected incubator could not be saved.
Another fatal fire occurred at the Sindh Government Hospital Liaquatabad in Karachi in February 2024. Four hospital employees, including paramedics, died after a fire in the emergency block, though later reports put the toll at five.
The official inquiry found that the hospital had no firefighting system and serious electrical deficiencies. It concluded that an electrical spark, possibly after a sanitation worker plugged in a mobile-phone charger, caused the fire, dismissing initial reports of a cylinder blast.
Private hospitals have also seen fatal incidents. In January 2015, a man died in a fire at a private hospital in Dera Ghazi Khan, reportedly caused by a short circuit.
In January 2022, two workers, including a welder, died in a fire at a private hospital on Karachi’s M.A. Jinnah Road. A third worker suffered critical burns, while patients were shifted after smoke spread through the facility.
Police said the welder’s clothes caught fire during work and that he used an oxygen cylinder, assuming it was a fire extinguisher, intensifying the blaze.
A gas-cylinder explosion at the private City Medical Centre in Dadu in July 2016 injured 20 patients, most of them pregnant women, including two newborns. Eleven people, including the two babies, were reported to be in serious condition.
Other reported fires include an incident at Allied Hospital Faisalabad’s paediatric ward in 2013, where two children suffered smoke effects; a fire in Nishtar Hospital Multan’s emergency block in 2014 that affected six patients with smoke; and fires at Sir Ganga Ram Hospital Lahore and DHQ Hospital Rawalpindi in 2014.
Major but non-fatal fires were also reported at Children’s Hospital Lahore in 2022, Ziauddin Hospital Karachi in 2025 and Jinnah Hospital Karachi this year. Patients were evacuated in several of these incidents.
The documented incidents show that at least 33 newborns and infants and eight adults have died in hospital fires since 2012. The toll rises to 42 if the later reported fifth death from the Liaquatabad Hospital fire is included.
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