Power Outages, Hospitals

The Hon. J.J. SNELLING (Playford—Minister for Health, Minister for the Arts, Minister for Health Industries) (15:46): I seek leave to make a ministerial statement.

Leave granted.

The Hon. J.J. SNELLING: Following on from question time, I sought information from SA Health and confirmed that at no time was the Royal Adelaide Hospital ICU without power during yesterday's outage. I have also been informed that emergency surgery at Flinders Medical Centre is running as 'business as usual'. Any postponements are focused on non-urgent elective surgery. I have also been provided with the following information about a power outage at Port Augusta Hospital earlier in the day from Country Health SA.

At 11.30am parts of Port Augusta experienced a power failure which affected the Port Augusta Hospital. At this time the backup power generator at the hospital was activated. I understand that at around 12.15pm the generator failed and the hospital was without power for approximately 30 minutes. During the affected times, essential patient equipment operated on battery power or manually and no patient's safety was compromised. Smaller generators were sourced which were able to power essential appliances in the hospital, such as medical fridges.

At 3.15pm, the mains power came back on until the statewide outage. A new generator was sourced, during which time the smaller generators were still operational. At around 6.30pm, a larger generator was sourced, returning the hospital to full backup capacity. Again, during this time essential patient equipment was operated either by battery or manually. I have asked Country Health to investigate the reasons behind the generator failing and provide me with a full report, including recommendations on how this situation can be avoided in the event of future emergencies.