TWO days before Eid Al-Fitr holidays, patients at Al-Qunfudah General Hospital and their families were left scared to death when the hospital experienced a six-hour power outage from 7:00 p.m. to 1:00 a.m. Patients and their families only had one thing on their minds: When will electricity be restored?
The power outage knocked out critical medical equipment, interrupted emergency room operations, leaving patients in a limbo.
It was reported that patients in the hospital's Intensive Care Unit and newborn babies in the hospital's nursery had been undergoing treatment when the outage occurred.
For those who don't know anything about Al-Qunfudah, it is a small city located south of Jeddah on the Red Sea. Due to its proximity to the sea, it is a highly humid place and when an outage occurs, conditions quickly become intolerable for the healthy, let alone the sick whose lives often depend on medical equipment.
It is an absolute disaster for a hospital to be shrouded in darkness for several hours. This mistake should not go unpunished. If the Saudi Electricity Company has absolved itself of responsibility and put the blame on the hospital, each and every patient and his/her family has the right to know what caused the outage and who should be held accountable.
Saeed Al-Suraihi - Saudi Gazette
