'Brownouts' in Pototan

While in Pototan, we experienced “brownouts” every day. Usually, when this occurred, the hospital generator kicked in within a couple of minutes. However, on Wednesday late afternoon, the generator was not working, and the hospital electrician had gone home.

He was called, and immediately returned to the hospital, but we were about 30 minutes without power. The anesthesia machines are designed to be self-sufficient, dependent only on the pressure of the O2 tanks, so the patients who were already under anesthesia remained comfortable. This ended up being a very late work day for the surgical teams, as surgery could not be resumed until power was returned.