Poor air quality forces Carleton Place hospital to cancel surgeries

Tuesday was supposed to be a big day for Catherine Coll — she was finally, literally going to get a weight off her chest.

After four months of waiting, Coll said she was scheduled to have her bad breast implants removed at the Carleton Place and District Memorial Hospital. 

"The implants I had put in 10 years ago had been recalled because they have a chance of breeding lymphomas," she explained. She added the implants had also expired in that time, causing her pain and discomfort. 

So, Coll said, she "put everything, in the last few months, into planning" for her surgery. 

"It's a six week recovery from this type of surgery," Coll explained. "I had everything planned out. I had people lined up to come in and give me a hand. People were taking days off work, things like that." 

She said she even timed and booked a vacation, based on when she would be "back in fighting form."

What Coll didn't expect was that her plans would be derailed by forest fires causing poor, dangerous air quality across the Ottawa-Gatineau region. 

Wildfires burning in and around eastern Ontario and western Quebec have caused smog warnings and special weather statements about the smoke.

Ottawa's air quality index was a very high risk to people's health Tuesday morning and again Wednesday morning.

Coll said she noticed the hazy smoke in the air as her friend drove her to the hospital for her surgery. 

Upon arriving at the hospital, Coll said everything seemed to be in order. 

"Next I know, I'm in a gurney with an IV already in, and just sort of waiting under the warming blanket," Coll said. "I was seconds away from being put under."

That's when, Coll said, the surgeon came into the room dressed in "civilian clothes." He broke the bad news to her — the surgery was being cancelled, due to poor air quality caused by forest fires. 

Coll said she was "gutted." 

"It was horrid, I've been planning for this meticulously for weeks and months." 

Hours later, Coll said the hospital rescheduled her surgery. She said she was told she would have to wait another month to return to the operating room.

While she said she was relieved, Coll said this means she must live with the pain for now — and come up with a new plan in time for her surgery. 

"This is is not just me getting my boobs done," said Coll. "This is pretty intense, needed surgery." 

'Safety comes first'

Coll's surgery was one of two cancelled by the hospital on Tuesday after it was forced to shut down its operating room, according to CEO Mary Wilson Trider. 

She said the operating room functions on "100 per cent fresh air coming into it," and the smoke from the forest fire has made that impossible. 

"Some hospitals are able to recirculate and sterilize air inside their buildings and so that puts them in a different position, in a situation like this, than the Carleton Place hospital," Trider explained. 

"We are totally reliant on the external smoke dissipating before we are able to safely reopen."

Trider added the hospital has had to shut off its air conditioning to avoid blowing and circulating the smoke indoors — especially to prevent the smoke from reaching the operating room. But that presents another problem. 

"In addition to being too warm as a result of not being able to have air conditioning, and possibly lingering odour as a result of air that had come in, we have concerns about temperature," she said. 

"We have to monitor temperature in operating rooms very, very carefully. If it gets too hot and in particular if it gets humid, then that's when organisms can start to grow that cause infections and other things we don't want for our patients."

Trider said it remains unclear when the hospital will be able to resume its surgeries. 

"We need to assess it on a day by day basis based on the external air quality," she said. 

"We don't make decisions like closing the operating room lightly by any stretch of the imagination, but safety comes first." 

Meanwhile, the Montfort Hospital and Queensway Carleton Hospital confirmed to CBC News in emailed statements that surgeries at those locations are proceeding as usual. The Ottawa Hospital did not respond to CBC by the time of publishing.