Children’s surgeries postponed after Temple Street power failure

Temple Street Children's Hospital was forced to postpone surgeries on Tuesday and was put off-call to ambulances due to a power outage.

The hospital is now back on call and the power supply is fully restored.

The fault is said to have occurred in the hospital’s electrical system at 9.30am on Tuesday morning, affecting a sub-area of the facility that included the emergency department.

It is the second power failure to hit the hospital since August.

A spokeswoman for Temple Street confirmed that 17 surgeries had to be postponed this morning, affecting 14 day cases and three in-patients.

Four elective MRI scans due to be carried out this morning were also postponed.

Emergency surgeries were due to resume on Tuesday afternoon.

Resolve the disruption

Electricians worked to resolve the disruption, which was still affecting lighting and phone lines in the emergency department on Tuesday afternoon, meaning Temple Street had to divert ambulances to other hospitals.

“Parents are encouraged to attend their local GP if at all possible, however,if the matter is urgent, the Temple Street emergency department is still operational,” the hospital said in a statement.

No in-patients had to be removed from the hospital due to the outage, unlike a previous power disruption in August, when five intensive care patients had to be transferred to Our Lady's Children's Hospital in Crumlin.

On that occasion, an electrical sub-station powering Temple Street Children’s Hospital shut down entirely and had to be replaced.

However, the spokeswoman said today’s power failure did not appear to be as serious.

She said the outage “continues to demonstrate the need for a new children’s hospital”.