Ali: Baby left unclaimed at PIMS for two months dies in fire

For nearly two months, the infant known to PIMS staff as “Ali” lived in the hospital’s Mother and Child Health nursery, where he was being cared for alongside other sick babies.

He was among the 14 infants killed in Wednesday’s fire at the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS) in Islamabad, according to a report. His body remains in the hospital mortuary, as no family member has come forward to claim him.

Quoting a doctor, the report said that the boy was born on June 21 to a girl believed to be around 15 years old.

It said that hospital staff asked the girl and the people accompanying her to provide documentation establishing her marriage. When they could not produce the required documents, they left the baby at the hospital and did not return.

The police had been involved in the matter since the child’s birth and had declined to release him to the family without proof of marriage, the doctor said. The infant subsequently remained in the nursery for about two months, despite efforts by hospital staff to find a way to place him with an adoptive family.

Another doctor said the baby’s prolonged stay in a ward housing sick children exposed him to an increased risk of infection and meant he lacked the family environment and stimulation considered important for normal development.

The doctors also questioned why the case had not been followed up by the authorities during the two months before the fatal fire.

While official hospital records identified him only as “baby of H”, staff had given the abandoned infant a name of his own: Ali.