The Punjab State and Chandigarh (UT) Human Rights Commission has taken suo motu cognisance of a news report titled “Power outage disrupts surgery, car battery used to start generator”, published in ‘The Tribune’ on Tuesday and has sought a report from the Civil Surgeon.

The report said a power outage struck while an orthopaedic surgery was underway on Friday at the Civil Hospital in Gidderbaha, forcing hospital staff to use the battery from a patient attendant’s car to start the backup generator. The hospital’s generator had allegedly failed to start because of a weak battery.

The Commission, comprising Chairperson Justice Sant Parkash, Member Justice Gurbir Singh and Member Jitender Singh Shunty, passed the order on Thursday, directing the Civil Surgeon to submit a report before the next hearing on August 25.

Meanwhile, Dr Rashmi Chawla, Senior Medical Officer (SMO) at Civil Hospital, Gidderbaha, said: “The power supply failed for a few minutes on Friday, and the staff attempted to start the generator. Its battery was found to be weak, after which the patient’s family voluntarily offered their car battery to start the generator. However, a video was recorded and circulated on social media. The generator is working properly now. It was only a temporary glitch, and the inverter remained functional during the power outage.”