A two-hour power outage at Chittagong Medical College Hospital (CMCH) on Saturday caused inconvenience to patients and their attendants, disrupting diagnostic and other routine services.
The hospital remained without electricity from 9:30 am to 11:30 am, affecting services at the emergency department and other units. Patients waiting to collect tickets, undergo diagnostic tests and receive treatment faced prolonged delays.
The Department of Radiology and Imaging, which has six X-ray machines, was among the units affected. X-ray examinations were suspended during the outage, leaving patients waiting for power to be restored.
Kazi Md Alam, head of the department, said X-ray services could not be provided during the outage. “Ultrasonography machines also require air conditioning to operate. Since there was no electricity, those machines could not be kept running either,” he said.
Shahidul Islam, executive engineer of the Power Development Board (PDB), said the outage was caused by scheduled maintenance work. “An announcement had been made the previous day that cabling and repair work would be carried out on a feeder under the Stadium area. As a result, power supply to the area was temporarily suspended,” he said.
However, he said the supply was restored after the hospital director contacted him and requested immediate action, citing the difficulties faced by patients.
CMCH Director Brigadier General Md Taslim Uddin said the hospital’s generator system kept essential medical services operational during the outage. “Critical facilities, including the operation theatres, emergency department, surgery wards, ICU, CCU and HDU, remained operational through generator power,” he said.
According to the director, the outage did not cause any major disruption to critical treatment, although some routine diagnostic services were temporarily affected.
