Grievances about hygiene, resources and patient safety at Pakistan\u2019s public hospitals are frequently raised in the pages of local newspapers, but a video of rats scurrying over pipes and beds shared on social media was not filmed in the country as social media posts claim. \u00a0The clip, whose audio has been removed, previously circulated in posts and news reports about rodent sightings at a medical centre in neighbouring India’s Uttar Pradesh state.<\/p>\n
“These rats are present in a government hospital in Quetta, the largest city of Balochistan,” says part of the Urdu-language caption of a\u00a0Facebook video<\/a>\u00a0shared on May 21, 2026.<\/p>\n The video, which has no sound, shows rats clambering across pipes and bed frames as hospital patients rest nearby.<\/p>\n “Even\u00a0after this video<\/span> has gone viral, it’s unlikely that our rulers will feel any shame,” the caption adds.<\/p>\n Screenshot of the false post captured on May 22, 2026, with a red X added by AFP<\/span><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n The\u00a0same video<\/a> was shared elsewhere in similar posts<\/a>, including the X account<\/a> of Pakistani television anchor Mubasher Lucman that also claimed it showed a hospital in Quetta. Other social media posts<\/a>, meanwhile, claimed<\/a> it was filmed in Civil Hospital Karachi<\/a>.<\/p>\n Complaints about public hospitals in Pakistan often grace the pages of local newspapers, with shortages of\u00a0equipment and staff<\/a>, hygiene<\/a>\u00a0and patient safety<\/a> recurring concerns (archived here<\/a>, here<\/a> and here<\/a>).<\/p>\n But the clip was not filmed in Pakistan.<\/p>\n A reverse image search<\/a> on Google using keyframes<\/a> found the same footage<\/a> had been shared <\/span>four months earlier by India’s opposition Congress Party on X (archived link<\/a>).<\/p>\n “Take a look at the scene from Gonda Medical College in UP,” says part of the Hindi-language<\/span> post shared on January 14, referring to a health facility in the Indian megastate of Uttar Pradesh.<\/p>\n “Here, in the wards meant for humans, the rats are having a field day. Fat and thin, round and plump… all kinds of rats are scampering here and there.”<\/p>\n