Surgical kit staining cost $5M to fix, says Eastern Health

Eastern Health says the cost of dealing with the stained surgical tools that plagued some of its hospitals this past winter has mushroomed to $5 million.

That's the total amount spent on operating expenses and new surgical tools.

"The operating expenses totalled $2.6 million at year-end and we have invested $2.4 million in replacement and additional surgical instruments," said Eastern Health in a statement to CBC News.

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• Still finding stained surgical equipment, says Eastern Health

Last March the health authority estimated the investigation and fix would cost substantially less — about $3.7 million.

Eastern Health postponed hundreds of elective surgeries last February after finding an unusually high number of brown stains on surgical towels and equipment.

No patients harmed

The health authority said the staining was caused by mineral deposits and there is no evidence that patients were harmed.

It says the problem has been solved. 

"Changes resulted in successful surgical sterilization of instruments which pass quality controls tests," said Eastern Health's statement.

However, the health authority says that because many changes were made to address the staining problem, it's impossible to pinpoint a single cause of the staining.

"Eastern Health made a great deal of changes…within a small window of time. This includes steam system modifications, filter banks, flushing of lines and equipment, the introduction of new instruments, instrument cleaning, repassivation, training and new quality control processes," it said.

"As all these changes took place simultaneously, the root cause of the issues may never be known definitively."

Eastern Health says the Health Care Foundation, a registered charitable organization established to support the hospitals of St. John's, contributed $1 million toward the total cost of paying for new equipment.