Fourteen newborns died in a maternity ward at the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS) fire. Like every disaster before it, we will mourn them and then forget the lessons they died to teach us. We manage the inquiry; we do not learn from the past. We punish a few individuals; we do not make the reforms necessary to prevent the next catastrophe. And so, we continue to face preventable disasters month after month.

There are few griefs heavier than this. Imagine the pain of a parent who arrives at a hospital carrying generations of hope and returns home with a coffin. For the fourteen families who lost their newborns in the recent fire at PIMS in Islamabad, the trauma is immeasurable. These were mothers who had endured months of pregnancy, counted the days and, in many cases, chosen names. In a matter of minutes, incubators meant to shelter fragile new life became the setting for its destruction.

No compensation cheque, official condolence or fact-finding committee report can lessen a mother's grief. This is not the first such incident in Pakistan. It repeats almost every season, with only the type of disaster, names and locations changing. We face similar tragedies almost every month: overloaded boats sink and claim lives because basic safety measures are ignored; poorly manufactured gas cylinders explode in homes, vehicles and restaurants; and shopping centres catch fire because basic building-safety protocols are absent or unenforced.

Just a few weeks ago, several tourists drowned when a recreational boat capsized at Saifullah Lake in Kalam. Two months earlier,........

© The Friday Times