Power outages at Jalandhar Hospital left dozens of patients struggling in sweltering heat this week, forcing staff to shift them out of the Emergency ward and other critical sections. The disruption hit the state’s largest government hospital in the Doaba region, a facility that treats between 1,500 and 3,000 patients every single day.
Hospital officials said supply to nearly one third of the building went down for close to seven hours, from around 6 am to 1 pm. Forty four patients, including ten in the Emergency ward, had to be moved to the Surgical Ward and Trauma Centre so their treatment would not stop. With no fans or lights working, attendants were seen fanning patients by hand and searching for cooler corners outside the wards.
What Caused the Jalandhar Hospital Blackout?
Hospital authorities did not shy away from admitting the scale of the problem. They confirmed this was the fourth major disruption since June 23, and pinned the blame on ongoing sewerage work at the hospital premises. Excavation machines, they said, kept damaging underground electricity cables buried near the site.
The situation turned worse on June 26, when a major fault caused a blast in the hospital’s main cable duct early in the morning. An electrician suffered burn injuries to his eyes and face while trying to fix it. With water collecting in the dug up trenches during the ongoing work, faults kept recurring. Hospital officials said they had reached out to the Public Works Department and the electricity wing of the Punjab Health Systems Corporation, the agency actually carrying out the sewerage project, to get the matter resolved on a permanent basis.
This is not the first time Punjab’s health leadership has had to address problems at this very hospital. State Health Minister Dr Balbir Singh had earlier told civil surgeons across all districts that “what happened at Civil Hospital Jalandhar shouldn’t be repeated at any other hospital.” He had also directed officials to ensure uninterrupted oxygen supply and functional generators in every ICU, OT and emergency ward in the state.
Were patients’ lives at risk?
That is the question on most people’s minds, and it deserves an honest answer. Reports from the hospital do not indicate that anyone died or suffered a medical setback directly because of the power failure. But the conditions were far from safe or comfortable. Patients on stretchers lined up in the Trauma Centre after being moved from affected wards. One attendant, whose husband was admitted after a leg injury, said “there had been no electricity” since the morning.
Humid weather made things worse for patients who could not be shifted immediately. Whether the hospital’s ICU and other truly critical zones stayed on independent backup throughout, as is meant to happen under standard protocol, is something officials have not fully clarified yet. This is exactly the kind of detail that patient rights groups and local reporters are likely to keep pushing for in the coming days.
Why does this keep happening at the same hospital?
Local reports show the hospital has faced repeated electricity trouble since late June, including one incident where staff reportedly used a car battery to keep a generator running during a surgery, and another where a full phase of electricity stayed cut for close to 24 hours.
For a facility that serves as the main referral point for an entire region, four major disruptions in a few weeks raises a fair question. Is this simply bad luck from an ongoing civil works project, or does it point to weak coordination between the agencies responsible for the hospital’s infrastructure?
Who is actually accountable?
More than 3,000 Patients a Day, Still No Backup Power! Right now, the responsibility appears to be split across several desks. The hospital administration manages patient care and ward operations. The Punjab Health Systems Corporation is executing the sewerage work that damaged the cables in the first place. The Public Works Department handles civil infrastructure. And the state power utility, PSPCL, is responsible for the actual electricity supply once it leaves the grid.
This kind of multi-agency setup is common across India’s public hospitals, but it also makes it harder to pin down who should have prevented the damage, and who should be answering for it now. Questions around whether backup generators were properly maintained, whether contractors followed safety protocols while digging near live cables, and whether the hospital had a functioning contingency plan, are all likely to come up as this story develops.
The bigger picture for Punjab’s healthcare system
Power outages at Jalandhar Civil Hospital have understandably put a spotlight on the state’s broader healthcare governance. Punjab’s AAP government has built much of its political identity around improving public health infrastructure, largely through its mohalla clinics model. A repeated failure at the state’s largest Doaba hospital, especially one that follows a direct ministerial warning, gives critics an easy opening to question how far that promise extends beyond flagship clinics into the state’s older, larger government hospitals.
It would not be surprising if this becomes a talking point in the next Punjab Vidhan Sabha session, with opposition members likely to press the health department for answers. At the same time, government officials may point to the sewerage project and third party excavation damage as the real cause, rather than any lapse within the health department itself. Both sides of that debate are likely to play out publicly in the coming weeks.
A Pattern Beyond Punjab
This is not only a Punjab problem. Similar incidents have been reported recently at government hospitals in Karnal, Haryana, and at Chandigarh’s GMCH and GMSH facilities, where long power cuts forced authorities to postpone surgeries and prioritise only critical cases. Taken together, these episodes point to a familiar concern in India’s public healthcare system, where capital spending on redundant power backup, proper generator maintenance, and dedicated feeder lines often lags behind the daily patient load these hospitals are expected to handle.
India’s hospital accreditation norms do call for functional backup power in critical care areas, but enforcement and funding at the district hospital level vary widely from state to state. Whether Jalandhar’s Civil Hospital had a modern, well maintained backup system in place before this string of incidents is a question worth asking as the investigation unfolds.
Accountability, Still Pending
For now, Punjab’s Health Department is expected to face pressure to explain what corrective steps will follow, and whether the civil surgeon and hospital administration will be held accountable if negligence is found. A formal review of the sewerage project’s coordination with hospital operations, and possibly action against officials or contractors involved, could follow in the coming days.
Local residents and patient families, meanwhile, are simply hoping the next emergency does not arrive during another blackout. Power outages at Jalandhar Civil Hospital have, for now, become a reminder of how fragile the backbone of even a well known government facility can be when basic coordination breaks down.