Officials at Maastricht University’s teaching hospital have confirmed that a power cut was probably responsible for the death of two patients this April when the outage stopped a machine giving extra oxygen to coronavirus patients on a small ward

The power cut, affecting one ward with four patients, was not discovered for over an hour and the emergency power supply did not kick in because the power cut was so localised.

Although the machinery sounded an an alarm when it went off, staff could not hear it because the door was closed as part of the coronavirus measures. Camera surveillance showed pictures but no sound.

Two patients, aged 67 and 76, died of complications after the machinery stopped working. The other two did not experience any serious problems.