Medical College and Hospital: Back-up saves the day. A Telegraph picture

A 14-year-old girl was undergoing a cardiac surgery when the lights went off at the operating theatre of Medical College and Hospital on Tuesday afternoon.

The surgery came to a halt but Chumki Sarkar’s life was saved by the uninterruptible power supply back-up, which kept the life-sustaining equipment running.

Fortunately for her, the snag — caused by drilling of walls to install oxygen pipelines — was fixed and the supply restored in 10 minutes.

“A delay of a few more minutes could have been fatal,” said city-based cardiac surgeon Kunal Sarkar. “Ideally, supply should be restored in two-three minutes. In no situation should a surgery be disrupted, and the patient left solely to the care of life-saving equipment, for more than 10 minutes.”

The medical superintendent of the hospital, Anup Roy, said: “There was a brief interruption in power supply. No major disruption took place.”

Chumki, suffering from a congenital cardiac disorder, was taken to the operating theatre at noon. Power went off at 1.10pm, bringing the surgery to a halt. PWD men rushed to fix the fault and the operation resumed a little after 1.20pm.

“The uninterrupted supply back-up can run some life-saving equipment for a few minutes. But to continue with a surgery, we have to wait for the resumption of supply,” said medical superintendent Roy.

Health department officials, however, said the government can provide power back-ups for all vital equipment. “The authorities just need to write to us about their requirement,” said an official.

The power failure also hit the casualty and David Hare blocks of the hospital.