Fire interrupts air conditioning at Jefferson Regional hospital

A fire erupted on the Entergy transfer switch to Jefferson Regional Medical Center on Tuesday, leaving the hospital to operate on generator power.

Entergy said in a statement the fire occurred during an outage at 5:11 p.m. Tuesday and affected Jefferson Regional’s connection to the utility’s system and its facilities serving the hospital. An earlier electrical issue occurred at the hospital at about 6 a.m. that day, Entergy reported.

“While the hospital currently has partial power to its critical operations via its own backup generator, the air conditioners cannot operate,” Entergy reported.

The fire happened outside and was quickly extinguished with no injuries, Jefferson Regional said in a separate statement.

Jefferson Regional said outpatient surgeries, procedures and testing scheduled for Wednesday and Thursday have been canceled, and inpatients are either being transferred to hospitals across Arkansas or discharged, depending on condition.

“The Jefferson Regional Emergency Room is operational, but ambulances are on diversion to other facilities,” the hospital reported.

Entergy crews were onsite working to repair the power feed Wednesday. The utility reported it has brought in additional generators for temporary power to restore air conditioning while permanent repairs are ongoing.

Entergy estimated full power would be restored by 10 p.m. Wednesday.

“We are investigating the cause of the outage,” Entergy said. “… Our top priority is the safety and wellbeing of the hospital’s patients, and we are working quickly to safely restore their power.”

This is the second fire to impact a Jefferson Regional campus this year. A fire broke out on the roof of a specialty hospital building under construction May 23 and was contained within 20 minutes. No serious injuries were sustained.

Hospital officials did not respond to a request for an update on construction efforts at that location.

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