SFGH back to normal since Thursday night

SERVICES at the San Fernando General Hospital have been back on stream since Thursday night, when the electricity supply was restored, said Dr Albert Persaud, director of health at the South West Regional Health Authority (SWRHA).

"Everything is back on stream. It was a scheduled thing, so everything was put into order before the current went off," Persaud told Newsday.

Staff said work was being done on the main electrical panel and this caused the blackout shortly before 2 pm on Thursday. Current was scheduled to be restored in four hours, but full electrical supply returned at 8.20 pm.

A worker who requested anonymity said since Wednesday, there had been electrical surges on the old side of the hospital.

"So they cut the electricity to assess and find out what is the cause and to fix it. They took off the electricity at 2. All elective surgeries were postponed, and emergencies taken to the new wing. They also moved the neonatal (patients)."

In an interview earlier today on CNC’s Morning Brew Programme, Health Minister Terrence Deyalsingh said Cabinet approved a $30 million two-year project about a month ago to upgrade the entire electrical infrastructure of the hospital. He said t were patients at risk as a result of the outage and did not know if this problem was internal or external as yet.

At about 9.45 pm on Thursday, just over an hour after electricity returned, SWRHA’s corporate communications department, in a media release, apologised to patients and staff for any inconvenience caused.

Like Persaud, the release said the disruption was caused by an issue with the electrical main panel.

"As a precautionary measure, a substitute breaker was immediately sourced and installed. In order for this installation to take place, electrical services were disrupted at the facility for an estimated four hours while the new breaker was being connected," the release said.

It said with the use of the standby generator, all services continued as normal, as appropriate contingency measures were immediately implemented to ensure patient care was not compromised.

The SWRHA expressed its gratitude to its "dedicated staff" for their immediate response.