The city's largest hospital network said elective surgeries will go ahead as scheduled on Thursday, after a sanitization concern led officials to put procedures on hold while they addressed the issue.
On Tuesday, the London Health Sciences Centre (LHSC) said it has identified and isolated the source of light staining found on its surgical trays. The contamination concern led staff to halt all non-urgent surgeries Monday afternoon and all of Tuesday until its Medical Device Reprocessing team could address the issue.
"It has been identified that the light staining originated from the steam system used to process surgical equipment at University Hospital," read a release from LHSC. "We had concerns that this could impact additional sites, so we stopped processing equipment for a period of time in order to test all systems."
LHSC explained the light staining was found on the liner that sits below the surgical tray, which holds medical tools for surgeries and procedures. It's not clear how many procedures were cancelled due to the issue, as all trays without stains were redirected for use in urgent and emergent surgeries.
"After addressing the root cause, we are confident that the trays are safe for use," the release continued.
Teams are now working to get all equipment back online to ensure all LHSC sites have the necessary tools to resume surgeries on Thursday.
"This was an incredibly difficult decision to make by our team," said LHSC System Innovation and Business Development Executive Tammy Quigley. "We understand that the pause on elective and scheduled surgeries and procedures is stressful and disappointing for our patients and caregivers. While brief, we believe that it was necessary to investigate and ensure our patients receive the safest care possible."
Hospital staff are now rescheduling cancelled surgeries for as quickly as possible. Those impacted by cancellations will be contacted by their care team shortly.
