Athaliah Reynolds, Staff Reporter

JUST weeks after a second all-island power outage and several sporadic episodes of black-outs affected the island, the University Hospital of the West Indies (UHWI) was yesterday left without electricity for over nine hours.

The Jamaica Public Service Company Ltd. (JPS) has blamed yesterday's disruption on "a problem at the Hope Substation" but, yet again, the power company was unable to say what exactly triggered the outage.

When The Gleaner visited the outpatient department of the UHWI about 11:30 a.m., patients and hospital staff alike could be seen lounging along the corridors.

On the wards, the nurses were complaining of the heat and said the power outage was a serious hindrance to the day's operations.

"It's affecting us very badly," one nurse told The Gleaner. "We have a patient here right now who is to go on the dialysis machine and we can't do anything. We have to either wait for the light to come back or hope that the generators power up a bit more."

Generators not enough

One hospital staff member said tha the institution did in fact have several generators, they were unable to supply power to the entire facility.

Dr. Trevor McCartney, acting chief executive officer, however told The Gleaner that there were no serious incidents yesterday and the hospital's generators were in fact able to provide power to all the vital areas of the institution.

"The two intensive-care units, the operating theatre suite, the MRI and CT scanning departments were fully operational, and so was the accident and emergency unit," said Dr. McCartney, who said he was at a meeting off the hospital compound.

"The administrative area and some of the wards were out of power for a few hours but there was no significant disruption."

The JPS said it was able to restore power to customers on a phased basis. However, it claimed, it took approximately five hours for restoration to all users.

The communities that were affected included the University of the West Indies, Newcastle, Hollywell, Chestervale, Gordon Town to Mavis Bank, St. Peter to Salt Hill and Bermuda Mount to Irish Town.

athaliah.reynolds@gleanerjm.com