The intensive care unit at one of Adelaide’s major hospitals is still running on generator power after an outage yesterday, with some patients relocated to a private facility on the same site.

Flinders Medical Centre, in Adelaide’s south, was closed to visitors yesterday while technicians worked to restore power.

In a statement, the Southern Adelaide Local Health Network (SALHN) said yesterday’s electrical fault was caused by a transformer failure.

SALHN said power had since been restored to most of the hospital but one area, including the intensive care unit (ICU), was still running on generator power.

“Out of an abundance of caution a decision was made following clinical advice to relocate some patients to Flinders Private Hospital’s ICU,” the statement read.

SALHN chief executive officer Kerrie Freeman told ABC Radio Adelaide’s Stacey Lee and Nikolai Beilharz that 10 ICU patients had been moved to Flinders Private, which is “down the corridor” from the public hospital.

“It’s in the same building, so it’s not nearly as dramatic as an ambulance trip between hospitals,” she said.

She said 21 patients remain at the Flinders Medical Centre ICU as of this morning.

Dr Freeman said she had been informed it could take a few weeks to replace the transformer, with the ICU likely to continue running on generator power in the meantime.

Dr Freeman said the back-up generator “kicked in exactly as they should within a couple of seconds” and another back-up would be installed today.

“We’ve got no reason to think the generators would fail but obviously when you’re in an ICU situation we need to be absolutely sure there’s a second and even a third option,” she said.

Dr Freeman said the hospital was “back to business as usual” by about 9:30pm yesterday and the ongoing electrical work would not affect patient care.

“For all intents and purposes, staff and patients won’t notice any difference,” she said.