More surgery cancelled at Cambridge hospital due to discoloured operating instruments
CBC
Cambridge Memorial Hospital says it had to cancel 17 patient surgeries on Wednesday after it experienced a "disruption in the reprocessing" of operating room instruments.
Soon after, the hospital announced 25 more surgeries were cancelled for Thursday.
In a release, the hospital said staff are working to identify the root cause and correct it.
Stephanie Pearsall, vice president of clinical services and chief nursing executive, said they had to cancel the elective surgeries because instruments within operating rooms were showing discolouration.
She said they have done a number of water and steam tests to the instruments and are still waiting for results.
"Our focus on patient safety must never be compromised," Pearsall said in the news release.
"We apologize for the significant inconvenience we caused patients today and will work with the surgeons' offices to reschedule their care in a timely manner."
The hospital has set up an arrangement with an external reprocessing vendor to mitigate future disruptions to its surgical services.
The hospital said it's working to prioritize and reschedule the patients whose surgeries were cancelled.
"We will look at potentially extending our surgical days," Pearsall told CBC News.
"There a possibility that we can provide weekends. That is all part of our planning that's ongoing currently. We can certainly make these cases up as quickly as possible for patients."
She said they have maintained a supply of surgical instruments to ensure they can complete any priority surgeries, including anything associated with cancer.
This First Person column is the experience of Shannon Flaman, who lives in Red Deer, Alta. For more information about CBC's First Person stories, please see the FAQ.
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