Eastern Health surgeries to resume Monday, says CEO

Eastern Health says that elective surgeries will resume on Monday at St. John's hospitals, one week after disrupting the lives of hundreds of patients awaiting important medical procedures. 

• Gander hospital helping clear Eastern Health surgery backlog
• 'It's inadequate': Cancelled surgeries in St. John's added stress for patients

CEO David Diamond said at a news briefing Friday that procedures will resume at St. Clare's Mercy Hospital and the Health Sciences Centre.

He said the hope is to perform 94 surgeries on Monday.

"On a typical operating room day we do anywhere form 90 to 125 surgeries in the city and on Monday we're going to be conservative," said Diamond.

"Then we'll go day to day from there, matching up the elective cases that are scheduled with the equipment we have."

Eastern Health started cancelling elective surgeries seven days ago, after the health authority found stains on kits about to be used by surgical teams.

The cause has since been determined to be mineral deposits traced back to water systems.

The problem, though, has been persistent, with stained surgical kits still being found on Friday.

Sterilizing units back online

Diamond said that five of the seven sterilizing units have passed testing.

Four of the units at the Health Sciences have passed testing and will start producing product, and one of three units at St. Clare's has been brought back into service.

"We're cautiously optimistic. It will take us some time for us to be 100 per cent confident that we've got all of the supply that we need and there will be no further disruptions but we're optimistic," Diamond said.

Expensive problem

Diamond estimated that the problem has cost Eastern Health hundreds of thousands of dollars. 

"This is a very expensive week we've had in Eastern Health. We've been managing our budget this year very tightly and unfortunately this will have a significant impact," said Diamond.

Two operations went ahead Thursday in Gander and Diamond said the health authority will continue to divert patients to James Paton Memorial Hospital over the weekend.

"As I understand it, most of what we will do on Monday is work that was previously scheduled  but there might be some adjustments if there is a priority now that's developed, but that will be done based on the priorities set by the individual surgeons."

"We really apologize for the inconvenience and all of the impact for patients ... we'll be doing everything we can to tweak our services to get people in at the earliest possible."