Power Failure
Lahore’s Jinnah Hospital, one of the city’s largest and busiest public healthcare facilities, was thrown into chaos on Monday after a major power outage disrupted services for over four hours.
The unexpected electricity failure impacted nearly all major departments of the hospital, forcing the suspension of ongoing surgeries and causing serious inconvenience to both patients and medical staff.
According to the hospital administration, the outage stemmed from a technical fault in the electricity supply system. The Lahore Electric Supply Company (LESCO) was immediately notified, and efforts to restore the power began promptly. However, the restoration process took several hours, during which time most of the hospital remained in partial or total darkness.
Critical departments, including operation theaters, intensive care units, and medical laboratories, were among the worst affected. Several scheduled surgeries had to be postponed, while some emergency procedures underway at the time were interrupted due to the sudden loss of electricity.
To mitigate the situation, the hospital administration activated standby generators to power select essential services. Emergency wards, critical care units, and some diagnostic areas were prioritized for limited backup power.
Despite these efforts, the generators could not meet the full energy requirements of the entire facility, resulting in significant disruptions to routine operations.
Doctors, nurses, and other hospital staff struggled to maintain services under the challenging circumstances. Patients awaiting surgery and their attendants expressed frustration and concern over the safety of ongoing treatments.
Many questioned the hospital’s preparedness for such emergencies and criticized the lack of adequate contingency measures.
Relatives of patients and members of the public urged the Punjab government and health authorities to take swift action to upgrade the hospital’s infrastructure. They demanded the installation of a more robust and reliable backup power system to ensure that such disruptions do not endanger lives in the future.
The incident has once again highlighted the vulnerability of public healthcare facilities to infrastructural failures, raising serious questions about emergency planning and crisis management in government hospitals.
