A power outage during an orthopaedic surgery at the Civil Hospital in Gidderbaha on Friday has raised questions over the hospital’s emergency preparedness after staff reportedly had to use the battery from a patient’s attendant’s car to start the backup generator.

According to an eyewitness, the electricity supply failed while the surgery was in progress. The hospital’s generator, however, refused to start because of a weak battery. To restore power, hospital staff removed the battery from an attendant’s car and connected it to the genset, and restored power.

A video of the incident has since gone viral on social media, drawing criticism over the condition of emergency infrastructure at the government hospital.

Senior Medical Officer (SMO) Dr Rashmi Chawla termed the incident as a temporary technical fault.

“The power supply had failed for a few minutes on Friday. When the staff tried to run the genset, its battery was found to be weak. The patient’s family voluntarily offered the battery from their car to help start the generator. A video of the incident was recorded and later circulated on social media. The genset is working properly now. It was only a temporary glitch,” said the SMO.