Parkway East Hospital hit by hour-long power outage; backup system activated

SINGAPORE – Private healthcare facility Parkway East Hospital experienced a power outage lasting slightly more than an hour on the morning of Dec 11, with a backup system kicking in to run critical equipment there.

The disruption lasted from about 9.10am to 10.20am at the hospital, located at 321 Joo Chiat Place.

Responding to media queries, Parkway East Hospital’s chief executive Ivan Khor said that its team “worked actively with electrical contractors to identify the cause of the outage”, with all services going back to normal by about 10.20am.

“During the brief outage, the hospital halted an elective procedure at the operating theatre before it went under way,” said Mr Khor.

He added that there was another ongoing procedure that was completed safely under uninterrupted power supply as a backup power system kicked in as intended.

The backup supply also provided the necessary power to run all critical equipment throughout the outage.

“All elective procedures for the day were also rescheduled or diverted to our sister hospitals for continuity of care as an added precaution and for the safety of our patients,” he said.

Mr Khor apologised to Parkway East Hospital’s patients for the inconvenience caused by the disruption.

The hospital did not elaborate on the extent of the outage, and how many patients were affected.

Among the hospital’s facilities are urgent care centres for both adults and children, as well as intensive care units for adults and newborn babies.

An eyewitness said there were no lights throughout the entire building, including the urgent care centre and hospital wards, when he arrived just after 9am. He declined to be named, as his child is a patient there.

“I proceeded straight to the ward, using the stairs as the lift was not operational, to visit my child,” he said, adding that doctors and patients also had to resort to using stairs to get to other parts of the hospital during the outage.

“When I asked the nurse what happened to the electricity, I was told that one of the circuit breakers had probably tripped.”

The natural sunlight provided some visibility inside the hospital during the outage, but medical staff had to use the torch function on their mobile phones to review documents and carry out their work.

“Thankfully, the power outage happened during the day, if not, the entire hospital would have been pitch black,” he said, adding that he was worried about how long the outage would last, and whether backup generators could power critical medical equipment until the electricity supply was restored.

However, he did not observe any panic among patients or staff during his time there, and left the hospital at 9.45am.