Nova Scotia Health says five critical care patients were transferred to the Halifax Infirmary after the power went out at the Victoria General Hospital at 11:30 p.m. AT Friday.

While the hospital is typically protected from outages due to its backup generator, Nova Scotia Health said that failed to kick-in due to a problem with the transfer switch, an issue that’s still being fixed.

Crews were able to restore power by temporarily switching the Victoria General to another breaker.

The hospital was without power until around 5:30 a.m. Saturday. 

“Contingency plans are in place should another outage occur while repairs are underway,” a spokesperson said in email Saturday.

Surgeries could be affected

No surgeries were in progress at the time of the outage, but scheduled surgeries are being reviewed, said Nova Scotia Health.

Patients with procedures scheduled for Monday are being told to contact their care teams to confirm their appointments are still on.

Nova Scotia Health said it’s unclear when the issue with the backup generator will be fixed.

In an email, Nova Scotia Power said the outage was caused by an issue with the hospital’s internal electrical equipment that triggered a safety switch on a breaker that halted power to the building.

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