Puri, Sept. 9 (UDN): Patients at the Sakhigopal Community Health Centre (CHC) in Odisha’s Puri district reportedly faced difficulties after a power outage plunged several sections of the hospital into darkness for nearly an hour.
The disruption affected the dressing room, male ward and diarrhoea ward, forcing medical staff to rely on mobile phone flashlights while attending to patients.
Generator Could Not Be Used
Although the health centre has a digital generator, it was reportedly not operated during the outage due to the absence of regular staff trained or assigned to run it.
As a result, the affected wards remained without backup power until normal electricity supply was restored.
The maternity and women’s ward, however, continued to receive power through an inverter backup system and was not similarly affected.
Electrical Renovation Linked to Disruption
Hospital authorities said the facility’s electrical infrastructure is currently undergoing renovation.
Medical authority Debasish Nayak said the hospital has an old electrical wiring system and renovation work has been underway for around two months.
According to him, the ongoing electrical work may have contributed to interruptions in power supply in some sections, while the inverter system also failed to function as expected.
Residents Seek Early Solution
The incident has triggered concerns among patients and local residents over the availability of uninterrupted power and adequate backup arrangements at the healthcare facility.
Residents have urged the authorities to address the electrical problems at the earliest, particularly to ensure that essential medical services are not affected during outages.
Hospital officials have assured that necessary steps will be taken to resolve the issue and improve the power backup arrangements.
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