SPRINGFIELD — People did not have air conditioning at an area hospital on Thursday.
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As reported on News Center 7 at 11:00, Springfield Regional Medical Center experienced an unexpected outage at around 3 p.m.
A Mercy Health spokesperson told News Center 7 that the Chiller HVAC system experienced an outage at Springfield Regional Medical Center. It was restored within two hours.
Some concerned patients called our newsroom.
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News Center 7’s Malik Patterson spoke with people about the A/C outage at Springfield Regional Medical Center on Thursday night.
Melissa Stevens and her husband, Ryan, said the timing was unfortunate, but that such things do happen.
“I mean, yeah, it’s definitely stressful on the patients, but I think it’s probably stressful on the staff as well,” she said.
“I look at it as anything mechanical is going to break down eventually, and especially with as hot as it’s been this summer, that AC is probably working overtime right now,” he told Patterson.
A hospital patient called her daughter and News Center 7. She said the heat was hard to deal with, and hospital staff used wet towels to keep her cool.
Patterson spoke with the daughter over the phone on Thursday. She considered moving her mother to a different hospital.
The daughter is also worried that this problem could happen again.
Patterson called Mercy Health’s spokesperson, but no one answered. Mercy Health sent News Center 7 this statement:
“During the outage, we took proactive steps to ensure the comfort and safety of our patients, visitors, and staff. This included distributing ice packs, water, and providing fans in select areas.
“We also temporarily closed the main lobby entrance and rerouted patients through the emergency department to avoid cooler air escaping the big sliding doors.”
Stevens told Patterson that he appreciated what the staff did for patients.
“I think there’s probably enough latent AC in the building that it’s not, you know, it’s anything is going to be better than being outside like this,” he said.
We will continue to follow this story.
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