CCTV footage shows fire at NICH controlled ‘in six minutes’

The blaze that resulted in the burning alive of a newborn baby at the Surgical Intensive Care Unit of the National Institute of Child Health (NICH) Karachi early on Thursday morning was controlled “within six minutes” by hospital staff. In the same time, children present in other incubators were shifted to safer places, but the neonate in the burning incubator could not be saved, members of an inquiry committee found on Friday.

The four-day-old girl, who had yet to be named by her parents, burned to death when the incubator in which she had been kept caught fire.

According to the CCTV footage shown to a four-member inquiry committee constituted by the Sindh health department to probe into the tragic incident, the fire occurred at 5:22am when an electrical spark in the incubator resulted in a small blast and the machine caught fire.

“The staff responded timely, and within five to six minutes not only was the fire extinguished, but the other children and neonates were shifted to a safe place,” a member of the committee told The News.

The committee, comprising the additional health secretary, Dr Sikandar Memon of the Sindh Aids Control Program, bioelectrical expert Dr Zulfiqar and Dr Rubina from the Civil Hospital Karachi, visited scene, examined the burnt incubator that had been moved to a store room and also recorded statements of the director and staff that had been present at the time of the incident.

The committee members said they also had a biomechanical engineer with them to examine the incubator, and added that they had summoned a representative of the company that supplied the incubator, while they would also speak with the baby’s mother, Iqra, or with her grandmother, who had been present at the time of the incident.

Meanwhile, Health Secretary Zahid Ali Abbassi met the family and offered condolences. He assured them that an inquiry to determine the cause of the fire and the circumstances in which their baby had died was going on, and those found responsible would be dealt with as per as per the law.

On the other hand, the Pakistan Medical Association (PMA) demanded of all public and private hospitals to conduct emergency drills to make their staff trained to deal with fire incidents and other calamities and disasters, saying these drills should be done after every three months at all hospitals in Pakistan.

“Regular maintenance of the electrical systems and equipment should be carried out, while in all old hospitals, the electrical system should be changed. We also call for regular maintenance of the medical equipment and machinery for proper functioning. There should also be strict and proper maintenance of the elevators at hospitals, while hospital buildings should be checked and maintained properly on regular basis,” said Dr Qaiser Sajjad, secretary general of the PMA, in a statement on Friday.

He said the PMA believed that the administration of public and private hospitals should look into the matter of fires and accidents seriously, so that these types of incidents did not happen again.

“We are very much concerned over the incident at the National Institute of Child Health in which a girl died yesterday due to a fire that broke out in an incubator of the hospital. Just 10 days back, a fire broke out in the National Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases and still the surgical facilities are not operational in the hospital,” he said and expressed sorrow over the death of the infant girl and condoled with the grieved family.

He maintained that such incidents in a hospital of a big city like Karachi were very depressing, saying that tragic incidents should be investigated properly and if somebody’s negligence was found, they must be punished according to the rules and regulations.

“The grandmother of the child constantly cried for help, but nobody came to save the child. Simply the closure of oxygen supply could have saved the child. Since medical staff and people around were not trained to deal with such emergencies, they do not know how to use the fire extinguisher. Eventually, the child died. We should learn from our mistakes and negligence, so that these types of incidents do not occur again,” the PMA secretary general added.