By IANS,
Islamabad : Four patients on life support died at a hospital in Karachi during a power outage that shut down their ventilators, reports said.
The incident took place at Jinnah Post Graduate Medical Centre (JPMC) which went without electricity for 14 hours.
Geo News reported that four patients who were on life support in the facility’s Intensive Care Unit (ICU) died when the ventilators being used to keep them alive went offline during the power outage.
Normally, generators are switched on during a power breakdown, but this did not happen this time as the hospital administration had not bought the diesel required to run it.
The media report said the hospital did not have the money to buy diesel and it owes a petrol station Rs1.6 million.
Rizwan Ahmed, a senior health official, said a probe would be conducted.
In August, Pakistan Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani constituted a high-powered committee to resolve the issue of unscheduled power outages in the country.
Pakistan’s power shortfall has now reached 5,000 MW. The country is generating 13,240 MW against a peak demand of 18,065 MW.
The country has witnessed protests over the lack of electricity.
In July, two people were killed and 30 injured in a pitched battle between police and locals who were upset over acute electricity shortage in a town in Punjab province.