A number of surgeries are being cancelled at the Ouellette campus because of equipment failure, Windsor Regional Hospital President and CEO David Musyj announced in a quickly called news conference on Thursday afternoon.
A pressure release valve on sanitizing steamers — also known as autoclaves — used to prepare surgical equipment has failed and lead to the closure of some operating rooms at the Ouellette campus of the hospital.
An autoclave at Windsor Regional Hospital are pictured on June 23, 2016. (Photo by Ricardo Veneza)
Musyj doesn't attribute the failure to poor maintenance pointing to the hospital's outlay of over $4-million a year for general maintenance. He chalks the failure up to aging equipment.
"Thing is just older infrastructure and things break. You know chances are in an older facility, an older house, an older car — things break down," says Musyj.
He adds it will likely be Monday before parts can be delivered, installed and tested.
According to Musyj, the hospital has been dealing with the problem since Monday, but finally decided on Thursday to shut down the autoclaves at the Ouellette campus.
"What happened is we figured we've got to stop, we're putting too much stress on the system and the last thing we want to do is create more damage than what there already is," says Musyj, adding surgical equipment was being cleaned by one remaining autoclave still operational. "Erring on the side of patient safety and caution we thought it's best just to stop even using the one unit totally."
In the meantime, hospital staff are looking to get as many surgeries moved to the Met campus as possible.
"Our surgeons are working with their patients and we are moving some of the surgeries over to Met Campus," says Musyj.
It's not known at this time the exact number of scheduled surgeries that will have to be cancelled, but Musyj says patients will have been contacted on a case-by-case basis.
