For the fourth day in a row, Whitehorse General Hospital is cancelling planned surgeries and procedures due to ongoing issues with surgical instrument sterilization.
Some surgeries and procedures set for Feb. 5 have been cancelled, and affected patients were being notified by the operating room scheduling team.
Additional surgeries set for Feb. 6 are also being cancelled, according to Jessica Apolloni, a Yukon Hospital Corporation spokesperson. Diagnostic and screening procedures such as colonoscopies and gastroscopies will proceed.
More than 50 surgeries and procedures like endoscopes and colonoscopies were cancelled over the past two days — Feb. 3 and 4 — due to an issue with cleaning and reprocessing surgical instruments, which are needed to safely conduct surgeries, at the Whitehorse General Hospital.
That number comes from Apolloni, who said the team is focused on identifying the cause of the issue to restore surgical capacity. She said approximately 25 to 30 surgeries and procedures are being cancelled daily as a consequence.
While some progress has been made to reprocess scopes, Apolloni said the operating rooms can't return to the full surgical schedule yet.
The problem is teams were noticing a film or residue left on instruments after they had been cleaned.
A Facebook post by Yukon Hospitals late on Feb. 4 notes the cause hadn’t been identified — be it an equipment malfunction, another cause or multiple factors.
The timeline for a resolution is unknown.
More cancellations may occur if the problem persists.
"There are no concerns for any patient who had a surgical procedure before this issue appeared. This issue affects our ability to clean instruments, as we cannot use instruments until they meet the standard we’re looking for," reads the Facebook post.
Apolloni said the protocol for emergency surgeries remains unchanged.
"We’re monitoring our supply very closely and have inventory for emergency needs," she said.
Contact Dana Hatherly at dana.hatherly@yukon-news.com
