KE urged to curb power breakdowns at public hospitals

As patients and staff of the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Center (JPMC) bore through a second consecutive day of power breakdowns on Thursday, the Pakistan Medical Association (PMA) decried the city's power utility's failure to protect public sector hospitals from electricity supply disruptions.

The breakdown at JPMC was caused as the K-Electric feeder supplying power to the public hospital tripped in the morning. Subsequently, OPDs at some departments were without electricity while generators kicked in to sustain the intensive care units.

It was the second consecutive day of unannounced power breakdown at the JPMC as on Wednesday a two-hour breakdown caused immense hardship for patients, attendants and staff alike. 

JPMC Executive Director Dr Seemin Jamali confirmed that the hospital was facing power supply disruptions due to tripping of feeders. She said the administration uses heavy duty generators to power some critical installations and departments where electricity should not be interrupted at any time of the day.

She, however, appreciated KE for sending response teams on time and clarified that the hospital was only facing breakdowns, not load-shedding.  But patients at many other hospitals in the city, especially the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation-run hospitals, are not fortunate enough as they have to face both unannounced and unannounced load-shedding on a daily basis, compelling them to use generators to perform surgeries and battery-powered lights to examine patients.

Patients and doctors at the Karachi’s oldest eye hospital in a downtown area, the Spencer Eye Hospital, also faces a minimum of three spells of two-hour mandatory power outages every day during peak working hours, starting from 9:30 in the morning, according to the hospital administration.

They said the K-Electric started the first spell of load-shedding at 9:30 am when there were hundreds of patients present at the hospital to get their eyes examined at the OPDs.

“On many occasions in a day, we have to use battery-powered torches and emergency lights to examine patients,” Dr Birbal Genani, medical superintendant of the Spencer Eye Hospital, told The News.

Established in 1940, the Spencer Eye Hospital is a reputed health institution for the treatment of eye ailments and people from the entire city and other areas of Sindh and Balochistan visit it for treatment of their eye ailments.

“After the restoration of peace in Lyari and its surrounding areas, patients and doctors are visiting the hospital in large numbers but power outages have made our lives miserable,” Dr Birbal complained.

The hospital has a diesel generator that is used in case of load-shedding but due to poor financial condition of the Karachi Metropolitan Karachi (KMC), which runs the Spencer and many other hospitals, fuel supply to the hospital often remains inadequate and the generator mostly remains silent due to lack of fuel, health officials told The News.

Another hospital facing the similar ordeal is the Sobhraj Maternity Hospital on Burns Road, where women from all downtown areas, including Lyari and Garden, come for treatment and delivery of babies but the important health installation is also load-shedding on a daily basis.

Expressing its concern and dismay over the power outages in the public hospitals, the Pakistan Medical Association (PMA) issued a statement, saying that eight to 10 hours load-shedding at public hospitals in Sindh, and particularly in Karachi, was obstructing provision of medical services to the needy and poor patients.

PMA leader Dr Ashraf Nizami and Dr Qaiser Sajjad maintained that health providers were left with no option other than to cancel critical operations. “This also causes shortage of water supply in the hospitals, which increases the sufferings of patients and attendants,” the statement said. 

“How hospitals can be run this way?” they asked. “Patients on ventilators are particularly at a high risk because when the electricity goes off, it could result in their deaths,” they said.

In the larger interests of poor people, they said, the PMA strongly demanded that load-shedding at public hospitals be ended. “These hospitals should be provided with an uninterrupted supply of electricity round the clock.”

On the other hand, a spokesperson for the K-Electric claimed that some of the major and important hospitals, including the Civil Hospital Karachi and the JPMC, were not only exempted from load-shedding but in case of any breakdown, their power restoration was carried out on a priority basis.

The KE spokesperson, however, refused to comment on power outages being carried out at other public hospitals in Karachi, saying she would first need to get the actual status of the power supply to each of those hospitals.