HALIFAX – Heat to rooms in the entire A-wing of the Victoria General Hospital building is back on after leaks forced it to be shut off two days ago.
Staff found leaks in the radiator heating system on several floors Tuesday, forcing the entire system to be shutdown, Nova Scotia Health Authority spokesperson Everton McLean said Thursday.
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Extra heat was pumped through the duct system that heats the main corridors of the building. The radiators were turned back on Wednesday at 10:45 p.m. and all the radiators were bled by midnight.
“We didn’t have any complaints about coldness in rooms,” McLean said.
McLean said he’s not certain if there were patients staying overnight in the rooms affected by the shutdown.
“I feel confident going to the VG and I feel confident about our health resources,” said patient Nina Petropolis, who wasn’t surprised by the latest issue.
“But I do know that if you’re doing heat sources and you’re using radiators they can only last so long and they can burst and they’re not replaceable that easy, and it is an old building there’s no doubt about it.”
Change on the horizon
Another person who isn’t surprised about the latest of woes the VG is facing is health minister Leo Glavine.
“The VG, having been open in 1947 is, again, past its probably best life cycle,” Glavine said Thursday, adding that change is coming to the way the hospital works.
“By mid-January, or thereabouts, we’ll be able to tell Nova Scotians what will happen at the Halifax infirmary, what kind of ambulatory care needs will be met by either another building or an area within the city limits, what will happen at the VG site.”
The leaks in the hot-water heating system also damaged the area where staff prepare chemotherapy treatments.
McLean says staff found a work-around that is allowing them to keep preparing the drugs for patients.
“There are no delays due to that,” he said. There is no timeline on when the chemotherapy preparation area will be fixed.
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The public wasn’t notified about problems with the heating because “the impact on patients was mitigated,” McLean said.
The problem plagued Victoria General hospital complex had two floods in the fall of 2015. The first, in September, flooded three floors of the Centennial building and forced patients to evacuate the building.
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