Rajindra Hospital power outage didn’t affect patient’s surgery: Probe report

A Punjab and Haryana high court bench headed by chief justice Sumeet Goel has now directed the Punjab chief secretary to file a detailed report on the frequency and causes of the power outages at the hospital’s emergency ward. The HC had acted on a public interest litigation filed by advocate Sunaina.

The probe committee tasked with looking into the power cut at Rajindra Hospital, Patiala, during a cancer patient’s surgery on January 24, has stated in its report that the outage did not disrupt the operation, and the equipment had continued to function properly.

On January 24, power had gone off at the Rajindra Hospital in Patiala during a cancer patient’s surgery. (HT File)

A Punjab and Haryana high court bench headed by chief justice Sumeet Goel has now directed the Punjab chief secretary to file a detailed report on the frequency and causes of the power outages at the hospital’s emergency ward. The HC had acted on a public interest litigation filed by advocate Sunaina.

Last week, the HC had directed the Punjab government to clarify whether a backup power supply is available at Patiala hospital.

On January 24 at 11.44 am, the PSPCL power supply had gone off abruptly for a short period of time. The reason was a blast in the 11 KV feeder from Sant Nagar due to which the services were impacted. The inquiry report submitted by the hospital stated that during the power cut, the generator supply of Mother and Child Block was switched on at 11.46 am. Thereafter, the emergency building’s supply was resumed at 11.50 am by means of UPS. At 11.57 pm, the power supply was restored. After the operation, the patient was shifted to the ward.

According to the doctor’s statement, there was no interruption in the patient’s operation during the power cut and the equipment continued to function properly. As per the statements of the staff nurse too, the operation went on smoothly during the power cut and there was no interruption.

It was stated that an audit of the electricity supply at the hospital is underway and estimates have been prepared and sent for approval.

PSPCL’s response

PSPCL officials stated in the inquiry report that the grid staff had started power restoration immediately after the blast from alternate power supply source.

“The reason for not switching to UPS or standby generators during the interruption of power supply for 13 minutes is not known to this office,” said the PSPCL.

The incident had come to the fore after a doctor, part of the patient’s surgery, had voiced his concerns in a video that eventually went viral on social media.

Petitioner Sunaina argued that a similar outage had occurred on February 4 as well and it lasted 10-15 minutes, causing severe inconvenience to patients and hospital staff.