Operations Were Underway When Power Failed

Thursday, June 07, 2007 04:13 PM

Full power has been restored at Prince George Regional Hospital.

The hospital lost two thirds power earlier today. There were operations in progress at the time the power black out occurred at Prince George Regional Hospital. Spokesman Mark Karjaluoto says he does not know if there were any complications. “We are looking into to that ."

As a result of the power failure no elective surgeries will take place tomorrow after a portion of today’s slate was cancelled.

Some Doctors were operating at the time that the power failure occurred, they say it did create problems in the operating room and the fall out from that black out will not be known until tomorrow.

“We are still not certain what caused the power failure" Karjaluoto said ’We have some ideas but we have more work to do on that . We also have to make certain that this type of thing does not happen again. "

At first look, it appears the problem was with a transformer at the Hospital. It seems that when it failed, there was a problem with the system that is supposed to kick in and bring the back up generators on stream. Instead, the power was only restored to one third of its normal level.

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Posted on Thursday, June 07, 2007 04:13 PM in News by 250 News

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Comments

Posted by: Vikingnuck on June 7 2007 7:54 PM

"Some Doctors were operating at the time that the power failure occurred, they say it did create problems in the operating room and the fall out from that black out will not be known until tomorrow."

Fall out? What does that mean? Could, will or did a patient die? Who would bear the responsibility if someone did die from this unfortunate situation. I sure hope that all that we're affected directly by this power failure will be OK.

Posted by: camoose on June 7 2007 9:09 PM

When power fails at the hospital the emergency generator is supposed to kick in and supply power. This system should be checked on a regular basis. Could it be that this system was not maintained or tested regularly because of government cutbacks. Whatevr the reason I'm sure that the s**t will most certainly flow downhill. I really do hope that no one was adversley affected by this incident. It's bad enough that you wait months or years for an operation without having a power failure in the middle of it.

Posted by: owl on June 7 2007 10:05 PM

One of the questions would be whether some of the equipment, such as the anaesthesia machine, has stand alone batteries as a secondary backup should the primary backup through the generator fail.

As you say, this will be used as a teaching example to reduce the chance of this happening again and even as an example, if everything went right, of how to secure the safety of the patients under such conditions.

Posted by: Andyfreeze on June 7 2007 10:14 PM

All the above posters here are correct.(yes,even owl!...(kidding owl!)
This should NEVER happen and must never happen again!
Lives are at stake here, and this is pathetic.
If it was an equipment issue,then it needs to be fixed and as fast as possible!
If it is perhaps an indication of just how much help our medical system here in B.C. really needs,then someone needs to deal with that too!!!
And that would be NOW!!!!

Posted by: Chester on June 7 2007 10:20 PM

Wow, anyone ever had a real emergency in their lives? Like a hospital is exempt from a power failure? Give your heads a shake folks and get real. Real life isn't like that. Stuff happens, to everyone, everywhere and at anytime. And yes, someone could die, and the backup battery's could fail as well as the backup generator and on and on. There is no such thing as never either. Everything and everyone can fail. Chester

Posted by: snappi on June 7 2007 10:42 PM

Yes I have had a couple real emergencies in my life, and yes I do believe that stuff happens, even in a hospital. Now with that said, I do understand that power failures can happen to anyone, but what are the chances that the battery backup as well as the generators aren't working either if thats the case? Slim to none I would say. I would then have to say that someone wasn't doing their job. Maybe tomorrow we'll know more. But for now I just hope that there were no casualties.

Posted by: camoose on June 8 2007 1:12 AM

I am giving my head a shake Chester. I'm shaking it in disbelief that such a thing could happen in this day and age.

Posted by: Chadermando on June 8 2007 1:17 AM

IMO this one is the responsibility of the n.d.p government that tendered the contract for the hospital expansion. Kind of a karma for turning their backs on union labor in the trades in BC necessitating the brain drain to Alberta and beyond.

That hospital expansion was contracted out to a non-union electrical contractor from Kelowna that at the time of tendering had just been banned from doing any government work in the Kootneys for five years due to their union busting practices on another hospital job in that region. The n.d.p. tendered the contract for what amounted to a negligable savings in a union busting attempt to show they could be pro-business at the time.

The end result was electricians making $10-$18 an hour with a crew of lumex (house wiring) contractors. 1/2 price labour makes for big profits....

Posted by: jonnypg on June 8 2007 4:46 AM

And the n.d.p are to blame for the rivers being so high too...jeez!

Posted by: YamaDooPolCat on June 8 2007 7:12 AM

Who is Gordo? I thought everything was Gordo's fault? HeeHee!

Posted by: owl on June 8 2007 8:10 AM

Okay, so we had better check out all the work done throughout the province under the NDP government and under the Gordo government and the Social Credit Government.

We want to make sure that no other hospital, extended care unit, high tension elecrical distribution system, etc. ever shuts down again; that no bridge will collapse or be rendered impassable; no road is closed by slides or floods; no building burns due to sprinkler systems failure or poorly trained firemen; no doctors botch up diagnoses and surgeries due to improper teaching; no fish die off; no international market is affected by beetles and economic changes in other countries .... and the list goes on and on

It would be an entirely new department under the Auditor General that would put Homeland Security in the USA to shame with size, budget, and powers to take over business operations and shut others down.

No government can be trusted. It is about time that we have a proper independent oversight organization headed by greens who will not be in government for some time and are thus blameless.

;-)

Posted by: Parrothead on June 8 2007 12:11 PM

Good one, Owl.