POWER CUT THREATENS EMERGENCY SERVICES

An hour long power cut on Wednesday night at Maputo Central Hospital, the largest health unit in Mozambique, put patients’ lives at risk, and forced doctors to carry out emergency procedures by candlelight.This was the second time in the space of a month that the entire hospital has been plunged into darkness by a power failure. The first occasion was in December, following torrential rains in the city.Wednesday’s power cut occurred at around 21.30, and so far hospital officials do not know what caused it. Staff at the emergency services resorted to candles and even used their mobile phones as torches in order to continue working without electricity.This critical situation arose because the hospital’s back-up generators failed. The hospital’s clinical director, Momed Rafico, on Thursday that the hospital possesses generators which are supposed to guarantee electricity to all sectors in the event of a power cut. But on Wednesday night the generator feeding the emergency services did not respond when switched on.He believed this is because the quantity of electrical equipment now in the hospital overloads the generators. The age of the generators did not help matters.“We had a lengthy power cut”, Rafico said. “Usually after five minutes we have to take measures. We have generators at strategic points in the hospital. We have one generator which feeds the emergency services, the x-ray unit, the special clinic, the medical and surgical wards, the kitchens, and the sterilization centre, among others. But when we tried to connect it to the emergency services, it failed, because it was overloaded”.“To guarantee the supply of power to the emergency services, we had to cut the supply to other sections”, he added. “This takes a long time, and we were still doing it when EDM (the electricity company) restored power from the grid”.Rafico said that nobody died because of the power cut, even though two patients under intensive care were reliant on electrical machinery. Their good fortune was that these machines accumulate power and continued functioning even after the interruption to the power supply.“The situation of these two patients under intensive care was what most concerned us”, Rafico said. “Fortunately nobody was being operated on, and there were no children requiring care”.But he was in no doubt that the situation was extremely serious, and that such power cuts can result in the death of patients.Power cuts are a normal part of life in Maputo, particularly during storms, which often cause short circuits. Essential services thus always keep back-up generators to cope with the power cuts.