Report into Mater Dei Hospital’s 50-minute power cut incident concluded

Mater Dei Hospital’s administration has concluded its incident report into the 50-minute power cut at the hospital in the early hours of Tuesday morning.

As Malta grappled with a 10-day heatwave, during which hours-long power cuts affected numerous localities around Malta and Gozo, MDH was left without electricity between 1:30am and 2:15am.

A spokesperson for the Health Ministry also revealed that the report was forwarded to an internal investigation board set up by the Permanent Secretary's office. The internal investigation is still ongoing.

According to sources, the generators failed to kick in, leaving a number of wards in the sweltering heat.

“Whilst power was maintained in critical equipment in areas such as ITU, NPICU and theatres, other parts of the hospital had an outage for 52 minutes before the in-house engineering team remedied the situation, and all normal activity continued,” a spokesperson had told MaltaToday.

As Malta registered temperatures higher than 40°C for six straight days, it hit a new record of electricity consumption with peak load reaching 649MW on Monday.

So far, 15 people have died in Malta since 17 July due to dehydration or hyperthermia, according to the Health Ministry.

Hyperthermia is an elevated body temperature above the normal range, leading to symptoms like sweating, dehydration, rapid breathing, and confusion. If not promptly treated, it can progress to heat exhaustion or heatstroke and become life-threatening.

Several unurgent operations were also postponed after the hospital emergency ward experienced an influx of admissions due to the heatwave.

“Therefore, in order to ensure the highest level of care for all patients, the Hospital Administration decided to postpone some of the elective and non-urgent surgeries that were scheduled for tomorrow and the following days,” the ministry had said.

As a result of the power cut crisis, the government announced that it would be setting up a new authority to monitor the impact of climate change and coordinate actions to mitigate its effects.

Prime Minister Robert Abela also revealed that the yearly investment of €15 million into the electrical distribution infrastructure, will be doubled to €30 million for the upcoming year.