Power fully restored, ER still closed at General campus after fire
Power has been fully restored at The Ottawa Hospital's General campus on Smyth Road, three days after a transformer fire forced the relocation of dozens of patients and shut power to parts of the hospital, but its emergency department remains closed.
"After a tremendous amount of work from the facilities team, supporting consultants, and many others throughout the hospital, we are now able to lift the Code Grey – Power," a hospital spokesperson said in a Monday afternoon news release.
Around 3:45 p.m. Friday, a hydro vault on the hospital's third floor caught fire while the hospital was in the process of replacing it.
Although no patients were on the third floor, as the space is devoted to mechanical works that feed the rest of the building, about 100 patients in the floors above were forced to relocate within the building or to other facilities.
Among them were 17 babies who were transferred by firefighters and hospital staff next door to CHEO, eastern Ontario's children's hospital in Ottawa.
The General campus remains in a Code Orange as of Monday afternoon, which allows it to divert patients to other emergency departments, and the hospital said it's working toward restoring normal operations.
