Castlemaine Hospital was hit by a power outage last Wednesday after which the facility’s backup generators failed.
The incident resulted in a blackout of about an hour, with some patients turned away at the door and some staff sent home.
Dhelkaya Health CEO Sue Race said a component fault occurred during a scheduled generator test at about 11.20am Wednesday at the Castlemaine campus.
“This resulted in temporary disruption to the power supply, which in turn affected powered systems such as telephony and IT,” Ms Race said.
“There was a brief delay as those systems restarted.
“In line with standard procedures, the hospital incident management team reviewed all service areas and determined that outpatient clinic appointments for the remainder of the day would be rescheduled. This decision was made to ensure clients would not be affected by any potential delays caused by systems restarting.
“Staff working in these client-facing roles were directed to work from home if possible within the scope of their roles.”
Ms Race said the hospital’s Urgent Care Centre remained open and staffed to ensure that anyone with urgent care needs would be seen immediately on arrival.
“As a hospital and aged-care provider, we have very clear and established systems in place for managing incidents and emergencies, and these were enacted within minutes of the initial fault,” she said.
“I would like to commend all staff for the swiftness of their response and the efficiency with which these incident management protocols were followed.
“I’d also like to extend my apologies to those whose appointments were rescheduled, and thank them for their patience and understanding.”
OUTSOURCING
Ms Race also confirmed a transition to outsourced IT services for the hospital was in place from last Friday.
She said Castlemaine Health and Maldon Hospital, now integrated as Dhelkaya Health, would be provided with Information Communications Technology support from Loddon Mallee Shared Services.
“LMSS will have an on-site presence at our Castlemaine campus from Monday to Friday and they will also provide after-hours support for priority issues,” she said.
“LMSS is a shared-service model operating from Bendigo Health that provides ICT support to all health services operating in the Loddon Mallee region.”
