Alberta Health Services has postponed over two dozen elective surgeries at Chinook Regional Hospital citing residue found on some surgical instruments.
Since Nov. 2, 32 elective surgeries have been postponed, including 25 that were supposed to take place on Friday, Nov. 4.
“We offer our sincere apologies as we understand postponing surgeries is stressful and inconvenient for our patients,” said Teri Myhre, Senior Operating Officer for Acute Care (west), South Zone. “This issue is a top priority and we take the situation very seriously. We are working to full resolution as quickly as possible but more surgical procedures may need to be postponed until we have fixed the problem.”
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AHS says the residue found on the instruments is considered low risk to patient safety, but could be related to the cleaning and sterilization processes. Officials said they will be investigating all stages of the processes, including testing water systems and medical device processing equipment.
AHS has rescheduled surgeries for most of patients and is hoping to re-establish a normal elective surgical schedule next week.
Elective surgeries include gynecological, orthopedic and cosmetic procedures.
Urgent and emergency surgical procedures will continue as normal.
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