SASKATOON – Patients with planned or scheduled surgeries at Royal University Hospital will have to wait longer for their procedure after a partial power distribution failure forced the health region to cancel surgeries on Tuesday.
Health region officials said affected patients will be prioritized for rescheduling of their surgeries and contingency plans are in place to support unplanned emergency surgeries at the hospital.
Level 1 and 2 traumas will continue to be cared for at RUH.
Saskatoon Health Region said there is not a full power outage but the failure has affected some systems in the hospital.
The failure happened after an overnight planned shutdown of emergency power due to ongoing electrical upgrades affected a piece of electrical equipment.
“Although contingency plans were in place, a piece of electrical equipment indirectly involved failed in a way that wasn’t anticipated,” said Nilesh Kavia, vice president of finance and corporate services for the health region.
“This piece of equipment does not supply power, but it is involved in power distribution. Some medical systems at RUH are now affected including medical suction and air flow in the building, in particular in the operating rooms.”
Crews are working to re-route the systems to other distribution equipment.
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