[UPDATE Saturday] Sutter Lakeside Hospital Rerouting Emergency Patients After Transformer Failure
Everbridge alert area
Sutter Lakeside Hospital in Lakeport is operating under emergency conditions Friday after a transformer failure disrupted power to its Emergency Department and Operating Rooms, according to a community alert issued by the hospital.
The Hospital Command Center has been activated. New patients requiring emergency care are being triaged and transferred to other facilities as needed. The hospital says care teams are working to maintain safe, continuous care for patients already on site.
The transformer requires replacement. No timeline for resolution has been provided. The hospital says it will issue an update when the situation is resolved.
Link to Everbridge: https://evbg.co/9qzl1y
UPDATE Saturday: The hospital says that the situation has been resolved.
“Emergency Power Issue Resolved at Sutter Lakeside Hospital
The transformer issue impacting emergency power at Sutter Lakeside Hospital has been resolved.
Operations in the Emergency Department and Operating Rooms are returning to normal, and standard patient care activities have resumed.
The Hospital Command Center has been deactivated following successful coordination of response efforts.
Thank you to our community for your patience and cooperation during this incident.”
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Pretty hard to predict a transformer failure. Even harder to get a replacement on short notice. It’s a serious situation which could affect the hospital certification.
You’d think there would be a spare transformer sitting around close by, with businesses such as factories and malls shutting down, given the economic downturn.
Well it would be foolish to install a used one , rebuilt sure , but they are not something that you just want to keep replacing over and over again either
Why foolish? Transformers don’t wear out…
I used to live under the BART tracks near the Concord station in the old almond orchard farmhouse. Not too nearby the big transformer on a pole used to predictably blow up with a loud boom every year in summer due to overload from the local cast iron factory electric furnace. In those days they were filled with pcb-laden oil. Nasty stuff. PGE replaced all those but stored the old in a lot in Emeryville downwind from the freeway, upwind from the old neighborhoodthere before all the industries moved in. Just as predictably PGE would replace the blown transformer with another the same size – go figure…
Normally power transformers are the responsibility of the power company prior to entering any facility. In hospitals, yes back up generators make up for the loss, but only in a limited role keeping the facility powered enough to provide basic life safety.
This is exactly why Hospitals have backup generators. Where is Sutter’s?
It can’t be a licensed acute care facility in California without life safety back up power, steam, water, supplies, and resources to maintain itself during a disaster for 72 hours.
Lisa the more info link points at the Community Alert image…
That was an image of the alert. I’ve included the link below the photo.
Hospitals have backup generators.
Sometimes, the Backup Generators, also fail…
PG&E will quickly respond and repair blown transformers, and if PCB’s are present, they send out a Contractor who cleans up the contaminated area…
At an “Older Facility” like Sutter Lakeside, electric failures probably occur fairly often…
Power-Out can cause equipment to malfunction, and require a “Re-Boot”, which takes some time, and somebody who knows how to do it…
There’s really no easy way to “Transfer a Patient to another facility”, in Lake County…
Plan accordingly, because if you live in Riv West, it could take almost as much time to get to care as it does in Shelter Cove…
Buy Helicopter Ambo Insurance.
Older medical facilities have the same strict life safety requirements as new ones. Generators are load tested by law weekly. If they fail, then portable packaged gen sets are brought in (rented) to provide a seamless power supply in a utility failure. The law allows for a 7 second transfer of emergency power to occur. Generators are kept warmed up and ready to provide limited hospital life safety needs. so if your loved one was having surgery it wouldn’t be disruptive.
That’s why health care facilities have maintenance and engineering departments.
Thanks for your contribution.
Time to buy a large backup generator that will provide enough power to the hospital so they can continue to function without moving patients.
The hospital might already be on e power but doesn’t have the capacity to to power everything.