Blackout interrupts surgery at the Women’s and Children’s Hospital
A POWER blackout at the Women’s and Children’s Hospital has interrupted two surgeries and forced the postponement of elective surgery.
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Full power was restored by midafternoon and officials said patients were not put in any danger.
As a precaution, non-urgent ambulance arrivals were diverted to the Lyell McEwin Hospital and Flinders Medical Centre, while 13 elective surgeries scheduled for yesterday afternoon were postponed.
Women’s and Children’s Hospital executive director Phil Robinson said an electrical problem triggered a backup generator.
“A backup generator did not start due to a failure of a solenoid feeding diesel to a generator,” he said.
“That solenoid has now been replaced, the unit has been tested under full load and it is now back to normal.”
Mr Robinson said the generator was tested to the Australian Standard for four hours last Thursday and passed.
“This particular situation when the solenoid failed was an unforeseen circumstance,” he said. “There was no danger to patient safety because we were fully communicating with the clinical teams.”
Noting the faulty solenoid was relatively “small and insignificant”, hospital officials are speaking to the generator manufacturer about what other parts may be at risk of failure regardless of monthly testing.
It follows the blackout chaos at the Royal Adelaide Hospital on February 7, when two generators ran out of fuel during testing and a software fault failed to automatically revert power to the mains.
That blackout plunged two operations into darkness and halted radiotherapy and a dialysis treatment.
An independent inquiry found staff at the RAH ignored repeated warnings in the days leading up to the power outage.
Australian Medical Association South Australia vice president Dr Chris Moy said uninterrupted power supply was a “non-negotiable part of a health system”.
“Any unpredictability in supply must be addressed,” he said. “Hospitals deliver highly complex care, and equipment failure can lead to serious patient harm.”
He said the transfer of patients to other hospitals showed the importance of having “a spectrum of services across our health system”.
“(But) the incident emphasises concerns about the lack of investment and poor state of infrastructure at the main hospital treating our precious young,” he said.
“Whilst it appears there was no adverse outcome on this occasion, we expect SA Health will conduct a thorough investigation into the cause of the power failure to prevent it happening again.”