FAISALABAD, Oct 20: The massive, unscheduled power loadshedding has caused a considerable decline in minor as well as major surgeries even at the biggest hospital of the city, the Allied Hospital, where the administration seems to be least concerned with solving the issue through making alternative arrangements for reliable supply of electricity.

The situation has made surgeons as well as patients shaky while they decide to go for a surgery or not, knowing not what to do in case of an outage occurring right in the middle of the crucial process. In some cases, the dim flicker of a cell phone’s liquid crystal display or even a candle remains the only light source to complete a complicated operation.

The surgeons are not ready to take the risk of beginning an operation amid uncertain power supply as they could be in trouble in case of the procedure going wrong and resulting in patient’s death.

The hospital, having 1,150 beds, along with 23 operation theaters, including eight for main general surgeries, two each for plastic and ENT surgeries, three for orthopedic and four for emergency operations, is presently facing nearly 10 to 12-hour-long power suspensions. The most worrying aspect of the scenario is lack of planning on part of hospital management to combat the menace and the dearth of resources available with it.

Operation theatres of hospital’s emergency are most-hit areas where doctors are forced to delay even urgent surgeries.

Sources say the hospital had bought four generators, each having 275KVA capacity, about two decades ago. One of the generators is inoperative since long while the reliability of the remaining three is also dubious. Even if they work to their full capacity, the output remains far below the hospital’s power needs, they add.

The administration is also avoiding running generators continuously because of high rates of diesel, they say, adding the fuel meant for ambulances is being used for power generation.

The sources say the Japanese government had gifted uninterrupted power supply (UPS) units for all operations theaters matching their requirements but gradually many of these devices developed faults for lack of maintenance and no one bothered to bring them back to working condition.

The hospital’s power situation aggravated further with a device meant for changing electricity connection from one feeder to another going out of order nearly two weeks ago. The administration seems to be least interested in getting the device repaired at a cost of Rs100,000.

Some of the surgeons confided to Dawn on condition of anonymity that hospital administration had completely failed to cope with the situation. They regretted that the massive loadshedding was also resulting in water shortage causing problems during surgical procedures.

They said the surgeons and their assistants perspired profusely during operations because of humidity inside the theatres when air-conditioners stop working. Even a single drop of sweat if coming in contact with an open wound during surgery could create problems for the patient, they added.

A doctor said cynically that people might have heard of candlelit dinners but they must visit the hospital to witness candlelit operations, all because of the administration’s negligence.

The sources said the Punjab Medical College management had signed an agreement with the Crescent Mills, an electricity distribution company, for smooth supply of power to its boarders, wondering why the hospital administration had not been able to make such an arrangement for patients.

The only corrective measure so far taken by the administration is recent installation of low-capacity ordinary emergency lights at different theaters to ‘avoid any inconvenience’.

Hospital Medical Superintendent Dr Bashir Ahmed said the administration was ‘contemplating’ purchase of a generator from local market that would cost Rs5 million. He hoped the installation of new generator would help resolve the issue.