A sewer back-up took out power on four floors and damaged an important scanner at the University of Manitoba’s Buhler Centre.
The PET scanner was damaged in the outage. It is used to detect and monitor conditions such as epilepsy, Alzheimer’s and heart disease.
“We fully understand the seriousness of the temporary loss of our PET (positron emission tomography) CT scanner,” said Dana Erickson, CEO of HSC Winnipeg.
“Many of our patients are oncology patients, including a small number of children. This is why we are looking at a variety of alternative options to provide this valuable diagnostic service during the outage and supporting the University of Manitoba to resolve the power outage as soon as possible.”
The WRHA says in a statement components in the building’s electrical system are custom fabricated and an emergency order has been placed to obtain the part.
The PET CT scanners sees about 8-10 patients per day. Approximately 25 scans have been cancelled as a result of the power outage, with another 10 put on hold for Friday.
Power is expected to be restored by next week.
Agencies/Canadajournal