Power woes probe looms for hospitaol

A task force will be set up to probe the 50-minute unstable power supply that hit operating theaters at Kwong Wah Hospital's new complex on Wednesday night, forcing an ongoing surgery to be switched to another site and 25 operations to be postponed yesterday morning.

The new complex became fully operational last year in Yau Ma Tei.

Kwong Wah announced late on Wednesday that power supply to some operating theaters was interrupted at 7 pm and was back to normal at about 7.50 pm.

It said all other clinical services, including emergency operations, inpatient services and emergency room services, were not affected.

"During the electricity supply interruption, one surgery had to be transferred to another operating theater," it said.

The hospital has since arranged for a comprehensive checkup of the electricity supply system and the availability of some operating rooms was suspended as a precautionary measure, it said, adding that 25 elective operations scheduled for yesterday morning were postponed.

Secretary for Health Lo Chung-mau said the incident involved a technical engineering problem and that the Hospital Authority will establish a task force to look into it.

"Hardware facilities and equipment for clinical operations at hospitals are very important, especially backup power to operating rooms to ensure surgeries will not be affected by any power interruptions during operations," he said.

Lo said power supply and facilities at hospitals must be of the highest quality.

"I have to stress the incident was not a medical blunder, but the quality of technical engineering and facilities would indeed affect medical services," he said.

A family member of the patient whose operation was affected, Au Yeung, said his relative showed signs of body fluids near where surgical incisions had been made, necessitating another operation on Wednesday night.

He said an alarm went off on Wednesday night and people were told to evacuate. But they did not learn about the power interruption until the surgery was over.

"After the surgery, the doctors came out and told us that power supply was interrupted during the procedure and they had to switch to another operating room. The surgery did not have to be restarted, but the patient had to be sutured temporarily for the transition to be made," Au Yeung said.

"A power failure during an operation is a serious incident. We are not professionals and we have doubts and concerns about whether the surgery was affected by the interruption," he added.

Scott Leung Man-kwong, who represents Kowloon West in the Legislative Council, said the incident was "unacceptable" as it affected an ongoing surgery and could have endangered the patient's life.

He urged the hospital to ensure regular maintenance of power supply facilities while investigations were ongoing.

He said the incident was concerning as it happened only half a year after the rebuilt new complex came into use late last year,

The hospital has also introduced new technologies to support medical procedures, such as a 5G network-covered operating room and remote medical consultations, making a stable power supply system crucial to its operation, he said.

Leung added the rescheduling of elective operations affected patients and their families, appealing to authorities to make appropriate arrangements.

Huang Yongquan, vice-president of the Federation of Hong Kong Electrical and Mechanical Industries Trade Unions, told The Standard yesterday that it is difficult to speculate on the cause and engineering personnel have to carry out on-site checks at the scene to determine what went wrong.