'Black film' on tools cancels 2 Eastern Health surgeries
Eastern Health says two surgeries scheduled to take place on Tuesday were cancelled, not because of stains found on surgical utensils and towels, but due to "film" found on the instruments.
Eastern Health CEO David Diamond said the surgeries were cancelled "as a direct result of our staining issue," and the health authority is "relatively pleased" with the low number of cancellations.
According to Diamond, there were initially 98 surgeries scheduled for Tuesday, making it a busy day for staff, as the health authority deals with a patient backlog due to the ongoing staining problem with surgical tools.
"One of the issues for us now is to increase the supply of instruments we have available within Eastern Health, and to discard some of the old, more worn out and more stained instruments to get them out of our system."
Eastern Health CEO David Diamond says a "productive day" in ORs at city hospitals. Expresses confidence that situation improving. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/cbcnl?src=hash">#cbcnl</a>
—@TRobertstHe said four of Eastern Health's seven instrument sterilization units in St. John's are now operational — two at the Health Sciences Centre and two at St. Clare's Mercy Hospital.
Four staff members are in Toronto working with various vendors to purchase new equipment. In the meantime, Eastern Health will continue sending kits to Toronto for cleaning.
Diamond said the health authority aims to complete the same number of surgeries tomorrow, "in that 90 range, give or take."
"This is still an issue for us and we're still managing it on a day by day basis, but we've managed to get almost our full list done today," said Diamond.
'Different staining ... not unusual'
Eastern Health has been manually cleaning older equipment around the clock, Diamond said, but a small number of kits have come out of sterilization with a "black film."
According to Diamond, the film is a different from the "brown staining" that was reported last week.
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"What we're finding ... when they go through our process, there's a different sort of black film that has shown up on a small number of our instruments as well," he said.
"Our experts are telling us that's to be expected, and we need to [put kits] through several cycles for that to correct itself."
David Diamond says "black film" found on older surgical tools after enhanced chemical cleaning not unusual. Film not infectious. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/cbcnl?src=hash">#cbcnl</a>
—@TRobertstDiamond said he's confident that the residue isn't "biological material, it's not something that is infection." Instead, it's believed to be a mineral content that leeches out of the metal.
"It's just the latest of a number of pieces of this puzzle that we've been trying to correct over the last week or so."
Cause unknown
Eastern Health said it's assessing ways it can complete upwards of 90 elective surgeries per day, including potentially sending patients to Carbonear and having surgeons work weekends.
Diamond said he could not comment on how many of the 540 cancelled surgeries from last week have now been completed.
While tests found elevated mineral levels in the water used to sterilize tools, Diamond isn't pointing blame at the city.
"At this point, we're just focused internally on getting this thing resolved ... the city has been a great partner in this."
With files from Terry Roberts