Officials have a better idea what kind of damage they are dealing with at St. Boniface hospital, where 14 operating rooms remain closed after a disastrous water leak earlier this week. But fixing it all is still going to take some time.
“We’re cautiously optimistic we’re talking one to two weeks,” Dr. Brock Wright, Chief Medical Officer at Winnipeg Regional Health Authority, told reporters Friday.
Repair crews have removed the 26 water coils that froze and burst Wednesday morning after a malfunction in the air handling system, causing water to cascade into two ORs. There are a total of 30 water coils and without them, staff cannot control the temperature in any of the ORs.
Meantime, more elective surgeries have been delayed: 130 so far. But Wright says the process of moving urgent surgical cases to other hospitals has moved smoothly, with an additional ambulance in service to assist with the transfers.
What’s unclear is how long it will take to clear the backlog of delayed surgeries and procedures once the St. Boniface ORs are back in action.
“I don’t have a solid answer for that,” Wright said.But he promised “we’ll make sure nobody falls between the cracks” when the time comes to re-book surgeries and other procedures. He said some cancelled surgeries had already been re-booked and performed at other hospitals.
Meantime crews are working 12 hours a day to make repairs, St. Boniface Hospital property manager Stephen Cumpsty said Friday. It isn’t possible to work on the problem 24 hours a day because of staffing issues and the small work space in the damaged area, he said.
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