Staff Correspondent
Port Blair, Nov 26: Along with the rest of the city the G.B Pant hospital, which is the only referral hospital in Andaman and Nicobar Islands went powerless for almost several hours yesterday, as cyclonic storm ‘Lehar’ threw city out of gear.
Islands’ main hospital, which should have been equipped with back up DG sets, went under complete cover of darkness after the sunset yesterday, when the OPD was still full of patients. To make situation worse there was not a single candle available with the staffs, who were found working with best of their capabilities using light from their mobile-light. Naturally patients suffered badly for a long time.
“Thank God no serious patient came during those dark hours. We saw an eight month old baby crying whole evening in the OPD block because of discomfort and darkness, in the evening,” a patient told Andaman Sheekha.
Further several important vaccines worth several lakhs are kept in the refrigerators in the hospitals and the vaccines are useless if exposed to temperatures above a certain limit and it is essential to keep the refrigerators turned on but the same went off in G. B Pant because of the power cut.
Almost every hotelier in the city now uses containerized DG Sets for providing backup power for their hotels. G.B Pant being the most important hospital of these Islands should atleast have a power house of its own for providing backup power as it is very essential for a hospital to have continuous supply of power.
