Doctors operated on patients with the light of cellphones after a power cut in a Hyderabad hospital.
Highlights
- Major power outage on Friday at Hyderabad state-run hospital
- Doctors admit they used light from their cellphone screens
- All generators worked, no patient's safety was jeopardized: officials
During operations as crucial as a surgery to remove an infected part of intestine, doctors at one of Hyderabad's biggest hospitals have admitted that they worked by the light of cellphones - though for just seconds at a time - because of a massive power outage on Friday.
Opposition parties say Telangana Health Minister Laxma Reddy must resign and the hospital superintendent should be held accountable. But officials at the Gandhi Hospital say that the 21 deaths recorded on Friday reflect no spike. "There were five deaths between 3:30 pm and midnight on Friday and they were due to reasons not related to power outage," the hospital has said.
"Two per cent casualty is acceptable for a tertiary hospital and our figure is below that," a senior government official explained.
Power was cut at the hospital for maintenance work.
For two hours in the afternoon, power was deliberately shut off for maintenance work. Two generators provided the backup. But when at 3.30 pm, the switchover to power supply happened, it was found that one of the three phases was not delivering. So for the next seven-and-a-half hours, the state-run hospital, which has 1,400 inpatients, switched between its four generators to keep power supply.
Officials say generators were used continuously and that the gap between switching from one generator to another was less than a minute.
"When we are suturing a wound, suddenly the current goes off, what do we do? As a reflex, we take out our cellphone and put the light. During that period, you need not suture the patient.... It is not that we have managed the patient on a cell phone. Not like that. For 10-20 seconds, cell phone might have been switched on but only for few seconds," said Dr CV Chalam, who is right now incharge as superintendent at the hospital.
Opposition parties demanded the resignation of Telangana health minister over the incident.
Hospital officials also say that crucial equipment like ventilators were not cut off from power at all. "They all have a 20 to 30 minute battery backup, so the power not being there for half a minute or one minute would not affect them," they said.
Opposition parties however say critical services at the respiratory intensive care unit and neonatal intensive care unit were affected.
"Our own reports suggest that several deaths were caused due to failure of power affecting critical equipment," said Prof P L Vishweswar of the Aam Admi Party. He said they had in fact complained more than a year ago about pathetic maintenance at the hospital.
"Only two out of 14 lifts in the hospital are functional. Only one tap works. The maintenance funds have not been released or used," he said.
The power supply company has clarified that there was no problem with power supplied by the Telangana Southern Power Distribution Company. "The problem was at the electrical room of the hospital and their generators were not in order," an official said.