By paNOW Staff

PAPHR brings in 2 transformers to fix power outage

May 13, 2015 | 3:25 PM

It’s been around 24 hours since the Victoria Hospital in Prince Albert experienced a power outage that led to the cancellation of elective surgeries and forced the Prince Albert Parkland Health Region (PAPHR) to put some ambulances on bypass.

At 3 p.m. Wednesday the PAPHR sent out a statement explaining two replacement transformers are going to be installed that night after an internal transformer failure hit the facility Tuesday afternoon. This will result in a planned power outage for parts of the hospital starting at 9 p.m.

During this process some service disruptions will continue for the rest of the day. While the power is out patients are advised to find other services at minor emergency/walk-in clinics for non-urgent medical needs as the emergency department will be affected.

The PAPHR said those patients who will be affected have been notified.

The planned outage will also impact the PAPHR’s information technology and telephone systems. They will be unavailable for several hours after the power is restored, starting at 7:30 p.m, according to a statement.

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The original power outage affected several areas of the hospital, including the intensive care unit, operating rooms and parts of the emergency department were affected.

The emergency department was open during that time, but there were some challenges in terms of the diagnostic equipment.

“I want to thank our patients for their understanding during this challenging period,” said Cecile Hunt, Chief Executive Officer, in a statement. “I also want to acknowledge the work done by our staff members and physicians who have continued to provide quality, safe care despite the challenging environment.”

After the new transformers are installed the PAPHR said they expect no further service disruptions starting Thursday.

The PAPHR said it hasn’t determined the cause of the failure, but it has an electrical engineer coming in to assess the situation and make recommendations to avoid a similar incident from occurring in the future.

-with files from Thia James

news@panow.com

On Twitter: @princealbertnow

by paNOW Staff

PAPHR brings in 2 transformers to fix power outage

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