A fire broke out on Monday in the urology ward of the Khalifa Gul Nawaz Teaching Hospital in Bannu, with no casualties reported (Dawn).
What happened
Hospital spokesperson Mohammad Noman attributed the fire to an electric spark.
All patients in the ward were evacuated. Rescue 1122 reached the hospital about five minutes after the emergency call, and the fire “was brought under control within approximately 10 minutes.”
Why a small fire is worth reporting
Because of what happened at PIMS in Islamabad, where a fire in the neonatal intensive care unit killed 14 infants. The inquiry into that found oxygen equipment had exploded beside an incubator, that treatment and facilities were below international standards, and that the cause of the blaze itself was never resolved.
Eight officials were suspended and criminal proceedings ordered. The PMDC has since made fire safety drills mandatory for house officers.
Against that, a hospital fire in which the ward was cleared, the service arrived in five minutes and it was out in ten is not a non-event. It is the system working — and the only reason it reads as unremarkable is that the alternative was demonstrated at PIMS last month.
What has not been said
No figure has been given for how many patients were moved, and no assessment of damage to the ward or to equipment has been published. Whether the electrical fault was isolated or symptomatic of the building’s wiring is the question that determines if this recurs.
Bannu district has had a difficult week: nine people were killed in six unrelated shootings on Saturday, in incidents police describe as blood feuds and criminal disputes.
A second electrical fire, in the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation building, gutted the mayor’s office on Tuesday morning — the same failure mode, in another public building, a day later.
[Image: MTI Bannu via Dawn]
