Health Sciences Centre hit with 12-hour power outage

The cause of a power outage that affected several areas of Health Sciences Centre is under investigation.

A spokesperson for Shared Health, which operates the hospital campus in central Winnipeg, said the outage began around 9 p.m. Wednesday and lasted about 12-½ hours. Women’s Hospital was not affected.

The outage began before Winnipeg was hit by severe thunderstorms that caused widespread outages in and around the city.

When the outage began, HSC immediately switched to a backup power feed to continue operating critical systems, including life-saving patient equipment, lighting and elevators, the spokesperson said.

They said HVAC systems were not supported by the backup power and shut down, leading to increased humidity which triggered fire alarms. Elevators were temporarily unavailable when the alarms were activated.

“Contingency plans were put into place to safely transport patients around the hospital if it was critically necessary to do so,” the spokesperson said in a statement.

They said Winnipeg Fire Paramedic Service members responded immediately and conducted a search to ensure there were no fires. No evacuations were necessary.

Temperatures increased in some areas of HSC while the HVAC system was offline. Staff used fans and increased patient checks until building temperatures began to return to normal, the spokesperson said.

“HSC has a robust emergency continuity plan to ensure patient and staff safety, and those steps were implemented quickly,” they said.