Possible equipment failure causing surgery cancellations at Whitehorse General Hospital
Whitehorse General Hospital has cancelled about 75 surgeries over the past three days.
The Yukon Hospital Corporation announced that all scheduled surgeries on Monday and Tuesday were cancelled, because staff were unable to properly clean surgical instruments. Some surgeries were cancelled again on Wednesday, while staff continue working to resolve the issue.
In a statement on social media, Yukon Hospitals says staff discovered residue on surgical instruments after they were cleaned. It says staff are conducting a "systematic review" to determine why this happened.
Yukon Medical Association president, Dr. Derek Bryant, says Yukon physicians were notified of the issue on Friday in a statement from the Yukon Hospital Corporation.
"There was an equipment failure where they were no longer able to clean and sterilize medical equipment," Bryant said. "The statement communicated that this was due to a malfunctioning water softener."
Yukon Hospitals did not confirm to CBC News that a water softener was the cause. In its statement on social media, it says the precise cause remains unknown.
Yukon Hospitals says there are no concerns for patients who underwent surgery before the issue appeared.
Whitehorse General made the decision to cancel scheduled surgeries in order to conserve resources for emergencies. Jessica Apolloni, a spokesperson for the corporation says there are currently sterile instrument kits set aside for emergency surgeries.
Despite the ongoing issues, certain procedures went ahead as scheduled on Wednesday, after staff were able to successfully sterilize scopes, Apolloni said. However, there is no timeline for when the situation will be fully resolved.
Updated surgical infrastructure
Yukoners whose surgeries were cancelled now have to wait for them to be rescheduled, says Bryant.
"Their surgeries would not be taken off of the waitlist and so there may be a backlog as a result of the cancellations," Bryant said.
Some patients whose surgeries were postponed may have already been waiting months or over a year, depending on the procedure, says Bryant.
He says this problem emphasizes the need for updated surgical infrastructure at the hospital.
"I think that's understood to be a necessity going forward, with our increasing population and our increasing demand for surgeries," Bryant said.
Updating surgical infrastructure could involve adding more hospital beds and more operating rooms.
"We likely need four operating rooms to be able to increase our surgical capacity to match the needs of Yukoners," Bryant said.
However, he expects the hospital will need funding from both the territorial and federal governments to make these upgrades a reality.
Bryant says this situation is a challenging one for surgeons.
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