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The following is issued on behalf of the Hospital Authority:
The spokesperson for Tuen Mun Hospital (TMH) made the following announcement today (April 18) on an incident of electric power supply:
At 3am yesterday (April 17), some areas in Tuen Mun Hospital experienced around one-minute period of unstable electric power supply. The contingency plan was activated immediately to supply emergency electric power from backup generators for clinical services use. On-site Electrical and Mechanical Services Department (EMSD) staff carried out urgent repair immediately.
During the period of 3.45am to 5.30am, power supply became unstable again on two occasions, each lasting for around one minute. In addition, one of the backup generators for emergency power supply was suspended for around 20 minutes at around 4am.
Clinical services in Block C, Block D, Pathology Block and Special Block with 20 wards, the Accident and Emergency Department and the Radiology Department were affected as follows:
1. The temperature of fridges in a paediatric ward exceeded the recommended level. Expressed breast milk stored in the fridges had to be suspended and around 10 newborn babies had to be fed with formula milk temporarily.
2. The Computerised Tomography service in the Department of Radiology was affected and the examinations for four patients were delayed.
3. Owing to safety concerns, a few patients on ventilators were either transferred to other wards, or had their ventilators switched to other power sources or ventilation mode. In general, ventilators have an independent backup battery installed for maintaining emergency ventilation.
4. Some elevators, lighting and air-conditioning were temporarily affected.
The hospital is deeply concerned about the incident. After initial investigation, it was found that the unstable electric power supply was due to the malfunctioning of a component of the high-voltage switch box. Electric power supply to TMH returned to normal after urgent repair. TMH will review the incident and work on an improvement plan with the EMSD in order to avoid occurrence of similar incidents.
TMH would like to apologise to the affected patients and has reported the incident to the Hospital Authority Head Office via the Advance Incidents Reporting System.
Ends/Monday, April 18, 2016
Issued at HKT 19:47
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