translated from Spanish: Report death of COVID patients by blackout at Tijuana hospital

Patients with COVID-19 who were intubated died over the weekend because tijuana General Hospital, where they received care, ran out of power.
The blackout began last Friday and was immediately reported to the Federal Electricity Commission. Lack of energy caused mechanical fans to stop working, affecting patients admitted by COVID.
Hospital staff told Zeta Tijuana that two patients died when the light left and three others had complications and were moved to an area where there was light thanks to an internal plant.
However, according to the workers, the plant did not have the capacity to provide power throughout the hospital, so those three patients also died.
Until Monday, the bodies of the deceased patients continued inside the hospital as the elevators could not be moved to the forensic area.
Read: IMSS General Hospital staff in Tijuana got COVID-19 for lack of equipment: nurses
According to staff, the light returned for a few hours on Saturday, then left again, and all Sunday they were without power.
Although the report was made from Friday, CFE staff attended the site until Sunday and the service was restored this Monday at 11 a.m.
Staff reported that during the days without light, the hospital had 30 beds with COVID patients, of which 19 were intubated, 12 had no light, and 5 died.
In addition to the fans, the hospital reported that the blackout caused the gasometer and laboratory equipment to decomposture, which involved having no clinical analysis service.
It also affected the care of general patients and delayed the work of doctors.
Doctors reported to Zeta Tijuana the lack of basic inputs to care for COVID patients, including the disabasus of the drug Midazolam, used in patients connected to a fan.
So far, the CFE has not given a report on the reasons for the blackout but the hospital’s director, Alberto Reyes Escamilla, told the same medium that it could have been a failure in the electrical substation resulting from an act of vandalism due to the theft of wiring.
In his version of the events, Reyes Escamilla countered the staff of the nosocomio by only acknowledging 3 of the 5 deaths and ensuring that they were not because of the lack of energy.
He accepted that the energy of his plant is not enough to supply the entire building.
For his part, The Secretary of Health of Baja California, Alonso Pérez Rico, noted that the lack of light was only recorded one day. He said he had no knowledge of the deceased and commented, like Reyes Escamilla, that all fans have an internal battery for such cases that lasts about 4 hours, so none stopped working.
With information from Zeta Tijuana.
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Original source in Spanish