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Crews from the Trinidad and To­ba­go Elec­tric­i­ty Com­mis­sion (T&TEC) work along­side tech­ni­cal staff at the South West Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty (SWRHA) to­day to re­store elec­tric­i­ty to sec­tions of the new wing of the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal near the Ac­ci­dent and Emer­gency De­part­ment af­ter an elec­tri­cal break­er fails, plung­ing parts of the fa­cil­i­ty in­to dark­ness.

Hos­pi­tal sources de­scribe the sit­u­a­tion as “a black Sun­day in the Ac­ci­dent and Emer­gency De­part­ment,” claim­ing non-clin­i­cal ar­eas are left with­out pow­er and al­leg­ing that gen­er­a­tors are not func­tion­ing. The source al­so al­leges el­e­va­tors are down and that pa­tients des­tined for wards have to be trans­port­ed via South West am­bu­lances, with some ser­vices car­ried out man­u­al­ly.

When Guardian Me­dia vis­its the scene, am­bu­lances are parked at the bay. The main doors to the new wing are open and there are no pa­tients vis­i­ble. An em­ploy­ee, who re­quests anonymi­ty, says some peo­ple use flash­lights in­side the swel­ter­ing build­ing as teams work to re­store pow­er. The main doors re­main open dur­ing the re­pairs.