One Kinston doctor resourcefully used a flashlight to see a couple of his most familiar patients when a power outage occurred on Monday morning.
As many as 10 medical-related businesses on Doctors Drive were in the dark from at least 6:45-10:45 a.m., Kinston Public Services Director Rhonda Barwick said. The first call about the outage came in at 6:45 a.m., she said.
The apartments on the other side of the road were not affected, Barwick said.
“That (medical office) side is served by underground, not overhead, lines,” she said.
City workers had to physically find the problem at the site. Computers can find what substations and circuits are affected, but not a bad line, Barwick said.
“A line underground had worn in two,” she said.
That can happen from a tree root, something with a sharp edge or water seeping down over time, Barwick said.
Workers use a machine that sends pulses down to find where the breakage is, and they dig down to splice the line back together, she said.
Some offices closed, while others managed as well as they could until the power was restored.
“We had to turn away all our patients,” said Cindy Burke, clinic manager with Kinston Medical Specialists.
The office rescheduled nearly all their Monday patients, except for a few at the end of the day, she said.
But the outage also affected their offices in La Grange, Snow Hill, Pink Hill and Richlands because they are all connected to the Kinston office’s computer system, Burke said.
It was Dr. Rupert Jilcott, an internist at the Kinston office, who was able to see a couple of his regular patients in the semi-dark, although the rest of his patients were rescheduled, Burke said.
Colonoscopy patients at the Endoscopy Center had a greater disruption.
Two patients who had prepped for the procedure the night before were admitted into the hospital for their colonoscopies, Burke said. But the remainder had to be rescheduled, as well as go through the prep again, she added.
Pre-surgery appointments at Lenoir Surgical the day before surgery were also postponed, said Dave Hobbs, executive director of Lenoir Physicians Network.
“Four providers were scheduled,” he said, “and we ended up having to reschedule patients until the afternoon.”
Some appointments were rescheduled to other days this week, he added.
Hobbs said some patients were seen in another office, but other people had taken off time from work to go to their appointment and couldn’t come back the same day.
Monday’s surgery patients were able to have their surgeries performed as that office did have power, he said.
For about an hour, the phones were working and staff was able to call the scheduled morning appointments to reschedule, and then the phones went dead, Hobbs said.
Kinston Clinic North Pharmacy managed their customers, as well, after opening at 8 a.m.
“When we got here,” Wendy Kennedy, a pharmacy technician, said, “the lights were out. … We still had customers coming in to get their medications filled.”
Customers with new prescriptions were turned away in the morning.
Most of the customers came back later, but some people who had run out of their necessary medication were given a pill on an emergency basis, Kennedy said. They came back later to refill and pay for their prescriptions, she added.
“We had to take prescriptions over our cell phones,” she said, adding the e-Scribe system doctors use was down.
There were other issues, too.
“It was hot,” Kennedy said. “It was very hot.”
There were also medications to keep chilled.
“The pharmacy manager’s husband came in with a generator,” Kennedy said, “so we could hook our refrigerator up because we had insulin in the refrigerator.”
She said she noted Kinston Head and Neck Physicians closed its office for the day.
Margaret Fisher can be reached at 252-559-1082 or Margaret.Fisher@Kinston.com. Follow her on Twitter @MargaretFishr.