A fire was reported inside one of the operating rooms in Sheikh Zayed Medical College Hospital (SZMCH) in Rahim Yar Khan early Saturday morning, which forced the medical teams to stop the surgery.
As indicated by the administration of the hospital and rescuers, it was an electric short circuit that caused the fire; the smoke filled the whole room and confused the personnel of the hospital and the patients.
The team of the hospital responded very quickly to the fire with the help of extinguishing equipment. It was reported that the fire rescue team arrived in no time and managed to put the fire out in about 10 minutes.
According to local news, the surgery was to be performed on a little child at the moment of the incident.
Meanwhile, the authorities of the hospital claim that it was an electric short circuit. Nonetheless, an unnamed senior doctor has stated that a similar incident took place in the same theatre about ten days prior to the recent fire, and that this incident had been kept quiet. The same source alleged that the cause of the incident may be disagreements between hospital and medical college administrators.
These claims have not been validated, and there is no official inquiry that has linked the fire to any conspiracy.
Zaheer Anwar Jappa, the deputy commissioner of Rahim Yar Khan, quickly responded to the incident and instructed assistant commissioner Abdul Hannan Khan to conduct an inquiry into the incident.
The district administration also took measures to check the emergency preparedness of government hospitals, focusing on fire prevention measures, systems of response in emergencies, training of the staff and conditions of cleanliness.
The incident again raised questions about fire safety measures in the largest hospitals of the country.
