Temple Street emergency admissions return after power outage

Five intensive care patients who were transferred out of Temple Street Children’s University Hospital following a power outage are to return to the hospital on Friday after an extra generator was sourced.

The hospital has gone back on call for ambulances and is advising parents they can bring their children to the emergency department once again.

All of Thursday’s surgeries and x-rays were cancelled after the power was interrupted at 3am on Thursday. The hospital switched over to its own generator but it was discovered the transformer in its sub-station had developed a fault.

The sub-station shut down and will have to be replaced. This is expected to happen by Saturday.

“Although we have UPS (Uninterruptable Power Supply) in key clinical areas we made the decision early this morning to transfer our most critical patients to Crumlin purely as a precautionary measure until the additional backup generator is installed,” a spokeswoman said.

Five children in the intensive care unit were transferred to Our Lady’s Children’s Hospital Crumlin, accompanied by intensive care staff from Temple Street. Medical staff also transferred to Crumlin as required, she said. About 20 surgeries which were planned for Thursday were cancelled, along with all elective X-rays.

The hospital said all other in-patients in the hospital were stable and could be cared for within existing resources.

Crumlin, Tallaght, the Mater and Beaumont hospitals were alerted and agreed to accept transfers as required. The Mater offered technical support.

All other services are due to resume in the hospital from Friday morning, including planned elective surgeries.