So while BEL workers were trying to restore power to most of the country, a team of Western Health Region doctors and nurses were trying to deliver a baby… in the dark! An 18 year old woman was in labor when the power went out. But instead of buckling in that very nerve-wracking situation, the doctors did the best they could and turned on their flashlights on their phones and delivered a baby. It is a miracle that the mother and her baby survived. Director of Health Services Dr. Marin Manzanero told us more about this case and explained that there is nothing they could do because the last time they checked, the 2 generators were working just fine.
Dr. Marvin Manzanero - Director of Health Services
"The female was in labor when the blackout occurred. As we understand, it was minutes before she actually delivered. The delivery was documented at 1:51am this morning. The delivery was uneventful, that means that the baby and the mom and doing okay which is I think an important issue that needs to be highlighted. What I think needs to be clarified is the concern that we don't have a generator. I think we need to remind everybody that we do have a generator, 2 generators at the western region. Those generators are the same ones that kept the hospital running through hurricane earl, in the aftermath and in the long hours where the country was without electricity. Those generators were fully functional. As we understand it now, because you could go back and review it, a fuse was blown when the transfer was supposed to have happened from the power system to the generator. The engineer that is available for the western regional which is our in house engineer, was on site in minutes. He couldn't get the generator to function so the maintenance crew, for that generator from outside of the hospital, was contacted at 2am, 10 minutes after the lights went off. They responded, they were inspecting the generator to see what had happened when the electricity came back. That generator has been repaired today, it was the fuse that was burnt out. The other generator which is the backup generator also was not functional and again I guess we wouldn't be able to know until it was tested. When they were tested last week, no fault was found in them. this would be I guess like I can run my car today and tomorrow the battery just shuts down when I want to turn it on. You would not be able to know until it was tested. When they were tested last week, they were functional. They were tested 10 minutes to 5 this evening and the generator kicked in, I cannot tell you that there will be another blackout tonight and another fuse breaks, what will happen. They were tested an hour ago and they were functional."
Courtney Weatherburne, 7News
"How old are these generators?"
Dr. Marvin Manzanero - Director of Health Services
"Some of them were actually procured earlier this year, particularly the portable ones, I don't have the exact date of these ones. The company that imports these generators and have service teams, they were alerted that this generator was not functioning and they did arrive on the scene. My understanding was that they were not in the Belmopan area when that happened."
Courtney Weatherburne
"What can be done at this point to ensure that this doesn't happen again? Because maybe in the next situation another blackout another woman is pregnant or a doctor is performing a surgery on somebody, they might not be lucky the next time. The flashlights might not be enough."
Dr. Marvin Manzanero - Director of Health Services
"I guess the maintenance team will have to go back and do their checklist to see if there was anything that was amiss. Things like this can happen, just like accidents. You try to cover all your basis, I believe there's nothing that we could have done that could have told us that this was going to happen. We are trying to see how we are up and running."
As you heard, the hospital has 2 generators but a fuse burnt out and they couldn't start up during the blackout. Thanks to the competence and resourcefulness of the medical staff, the 18 year old mother had a healthy baby girl.
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