The emergency generator of the LBJ Hospital that supplies power to prioritized Critical Care units like the Intensive Care unit, came on 13 second after the island wide power outage which occurred at 4:30 pm Wednesday. However, a second emergency unit that powers the Dialysis Unit took longer to restore power and after 25 minutes it experienced a mechanical failure with its cooling system.
That’s the explanation from the CEO of the LBJ Hospital Scott Anesi on Wednesday’s power outage at the hospital.
Anesi said for the safety patients the Dialysis Unit decided to reschedule patients who were slated for treatment during the outage to a time that falls within their routine and would not disrupt their care.
He said this allowed the hospital’s engineering team to fix the fault, and fully restore power to the Dialysis Unit, before the next scheduled round of dialysis treatment.
According to Anesi, power was fully restored to all units at 6:20 pm.
The teams worked continuously through the night toward a successful temporary fix in the event of another power outage, and are currently working tirelessly on a secondary solution to add another layer of redundancy to our current plan, he said.
Anesi apologized to all those affected and said, “I have family and friends who rely on dialysis so I know firsthand how difficult it is when something like this occurs and the impact it has on our loved ones.”
The CEO assured his commitment for a permanent solution to ensure continuous power supply for the hospital. He said in the next couple of months a second standby generator will be installed to provide another layer of emergency support.
