Doctors at the Guntur General Hospital in Andhra Pradesh were forced to perform a surgery under a mobile phone's torch light after the power went off suddenly in the operation theater.
The incident, which happened on February 9, came to light on Thursday, with Opposition YSR Congress party activists staging a dharna in front of the hospital.
According to hospital superintendent Dr Devanaboina Shouri Raju Naidu, the incident happened on a second Saturday, a lean day.
"There were electrical repairs going on. Suddenly, circuit breaker tripped resulting in disruption of power to one of the two beds in the operation theater where a plastic surgery was going on for facial corrections," the doctor explained.
Without waiting for the power to come back on, Dr Smitha Shankar, who was performing the surgery, turned on her mobile phone's light and continued with the surgery.
The hospital staff, however, claimed that the operation theaters have no back up due to paucity of funds.
"The lives of poor patients are at risk each time a surgery takes place in the operation theaters that lack basic facilities like an inverter or generator," said a staff member.
Refuting their allegations, Dr Shouri said that there is no shortage of funds and it was only power failure.
The Guntur General Hospital has been in the news earlier as well.
In August 2015, an infant undergoing treatment at the neo-natal intensive care unit in GGH was bitten to death by rats.
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