Operating rooms expected to reopen at Victoria General site this week

The QEII Health Sciences Centre's Victoria General site is pictured on Saturday, March 7, 2026. (Callum Smith/CTV Atlantic)

Nova Scotia Health says normal operations are expected to resume at the Victoria General hospital in Halifax by the end of the week, after a weekend power outage forced the site to close its operating rooms.

The Centennial Building lost power just before midnight Friday.

“While the generators were functioning, one of the building’s two transformers experienced a problem resulting in the power loss,” said Nova Scotia Health in an update Wednesday.

“After investigation of the internal issue, we asked Nova Scotia Power to transfer the building to a secondary feed, restoring full power to the building at approximately 5:30 a.m.”

The Centennial Building returned to regular street power later Saturday.

Five patients in the intensive care unit (ICU) were transferred to the Halifax Infirmary site as a precaution. There are currently no patients in the ICU.

“Since the incident, our facilities team has been working with experts and community partners around the clock to investigate, diagnose and plan a remediation to the problem,” said Nova Scotia Health.

“We have been working to remove the affected transformer, and test and install a replacement transformer.”

Power will be shut off for up to two hours while the replacement transformer is connected and tested. Nova Scotia Health did not say when the shutdown will take place.

Surgeries relocated, rescheduled

Operating rooms have remained closed since the weekend as the hospital investigates and works to fix the issue.

As of Tuesday, 21 surgeries had been relocated to other QEII Health Sciences Centre sites and 39 surgeries had been rescheduled.

Nova Scotia Health says surgical services can resume and the ICU can reopen once the transformer is successfully installed. It expects that to happen by the end of the week.

“Patients will hear directly from their care teams if care scheduled for the Centennial Building Thursday is being rescheduled or relocated,” said the health authority.”

“We apologize for the inconvenience of the disruptions this week.”

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