Operations at the island’s hospital were cancelled on Friday after the air-conditioning system broke down.

A spokeswoman confirmed that more than a dozen non-urgent operations were put off at the King Edward VII Memorial Hospital after the air conditioning in the acute care wing failed.

She said: “Unexpectedly, both the main chiller unit and its back-up failed and the temperature in the ACW was quite warm.”

The spokeswoman added: “Fourteen elective surgeries out of a total of 26 were cancelled.

“Our special apologies go to the surgical patients who had surgeries postponed, particularly to the five people who were waiting in hospital at the time.”

She added: “The system is maintained by Black & Macdonald as part of the public private partnership contract and they are working hard to have the air conditioning working again.”

The spokeswoman said work at the emergency, inpatient, CT, radiology, ultrasound, dialysis and oncology work continued as normal. More than 40 MRI scans, however, were also cancelled.

The spokeswoman added: “As the MRI unit is also temperature sensitive, 14 people had their MRI tests postponed today. As a precaution, 27 people who had MRI tests planned for over the weekend have also been postponed.

But she said: “All impacted surgeries and tests will be rescheduled as soon as possible.”

The air conditioning was repaired later on Friday.