ISLAMABAD -UNS: Chairman of IRR International and the Rehman Malik Foundation, Ali Rehman Malik, has called for full institutional accountability following the deaths of fourteen newborn children in the fire at the neonatal nursery of the Mother and Child Health Centre at the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS), saying the tragedy raises fundamental questions about fire safety, supervision, emergency preparedness and responsibility within the public health system.
“Fourteen newborn children should not have to die before a health system discovers who was responsible for keeping them safe,” Malik said.
He said the precise cause of the fire must be established through a complete and impartial investigation, but that the issue extends beyond the immediate source of ignition.
“A minister need not personally run a hospital. He is responsible for ensuring that there is a functioning chain of accountability beneath him,” Malik said.
He added that political responsibility should not be confused with personally administering the daily operations of a hospital.
The purpose of effective leadership is to ensure that responsibility is clearly allocated, standards are enforced, deficiencies are identified and failures are corrected before lives are lost.
Malik said the emerging findings concerning fire safety and emergency preparedness make it essential that the inquiry examine not merely who was present when the fire broke out, but whether the institutional systems responsible for preventing and responding to such an event were adequate in the first place.
He said the real test of governance is not how quickly someone can be identified to carry responsibility after a catastrophe.
