The families of three patients undergoing surgery shared a frightening experience Wednesday when the electricity went out for more than an hour at the Labuang Baji General Hospital in Makassar, South Sulawesi.

Not only did the electricity fail but the hospital's generators, designed to provide limited electricity to essential services, have not been working for a year, leaving the families with no choice but to hope the medical staff could handle the situation.

The three patients were having abdominal, orthopedic and ear-nose-throat procedures.

Without electricity, surgeons and nurses had to proceed and manually monitor the patients' vital signs.

Sahara Daeng Sunggu, 45, was having surgery to treat a chronic hemorrhoid. Family members cried and said they were worried the blackout would threaten Sahara's life.

"One surgeon had met with us and requested permission to put a section of artificial bowel in my grandmother's stomach," said Ismi, 29.

"When the electricity went out, another doctor came out of the operating room. When we asked whether the blackout would have a bad impact on grandma, he said he didn't know."

"That's why we were so concerned. The electricity has been out for more than one hour."

The head of hospital operations, Muhammad Darwis, said the hospital immediately cased the Makassar branch of state-owned electricity firm PT PLN for an explanation.

"We asked whether the blackout was on purpose to avoid a blackout in the evening.

"PLN said they had had to cut the power to let more water collect at the Bakaru hydropower plant so there would be enough water to generate power in the evening," he said.

Darwis said he regretted that PLN did not inform the hospital beforehand about the planned blackout.

"If PLN had given prior notice, we could have postponed the scheduled surgeries," he said.

He also said the hospital was trying to procure a new generator set to replace the broken one.

Spokesperson for PLN South, Southeast and West Sulawesi region, Muhammad Yamin Loleh, blamed the hospital for not having generators on hand in case of a sudden power outage.

"Hospitals, office buildings and large buildings are already required by regulation to have a set of generators.

"It is very regrettable if the hospital doesn't have one," he said.

Makassar and the surrounding Gowa regency have experienced blackouts every three days. The city of Gowa is suffering the most with blackouts striking twice a day, morning and evening.

Meanwhile people in Makassar are dealing with daytime blackouts lasting about two hours each.

Yamin said none of the region's blackouts were planned, and PLN was operating at peak production both at the Bakaru plant and the Tello diesel power plant.

"It wasn't a planned blackout but an unplanned one. If a blackout happens during the day, it means the volume of water at Bakaru plant is too small so we have to stop one of its two generators," he said.

"This can happen anytime and it's unpredictable."

This story was first published in The Jakarta Post on Sept 4, 2008.