Patients at the Port Elizabeth Provincial Hospital are at the mercy of a generator to supply electricity to the entire facility.
This happened after private contractors damaged an electric cable last week.
The private contractor, known to AlgoaFM News, has been on site since last week to fix an underground pipe leak when they hit an electric cable plunging the hospital into darkness.
The hospital's one generator kicked in on Friday but according to a source, patients who needed scans, X-Rays or blood work had to be sent home due to the outage and patients needing surgery could not be attended to as the theatre was out of commission.
The hospital's workshop employee, who did not want to be named, confirmed that the electricity blew up on Thursday and that scheduled surgeries were on hold due to the high risk involved.
Provincial Hospital CEO, Mthandeki Xamlashe, said the contractor working on-site was liable for the damage to the electric cable.
He said the institution will handle the situation and will invoice the contractor for the diesel needed to use the generator.
"A full report will be compiled once they hand over the site of the electrical repairs back to the hospital it's only then that we will be able to deal with these matters decisively. I understand it happens, sometimes it's a mistake and sometimes it's negligence but the company that deals with that is liable," he added.
Xamlashe said they cant perform operations on emergency power so they need this problem to be sorted out within the next 48 hours.
"You are talking about heavy electrical power here, it's no longer an ordinary indoor connection so, we will make sure the contractor fixes it in 48 hours," he said.
He says only non-emergency theatre patients are put on hold for now but emergency operations are done with emergency power.
The Eastern Cape MEC of Health, Nomakhosazana Meth, was also in Gqeberha alongside the Deputy Minister in the Presidency, Pinky Kekana for an oversight visit into service delivery issues affecting Livingstone and Dora Nginza Hospital on Tuesday.
Meth said she is aware of the incident at Provincial Hospital calling it a day-to-day problem that happens during maintenance.
She said patients needing immediate attention are being transferred to Livingstone Hospital.
