By CHAT News Today

199 surgeries postponed at hospital since May 9; AHS bringing in outside help to solve problem

May 29, 2017 | 5:56 PM

MEDICINE HAT, AB — Alberta Health Services have called in outside help to try and solve the water quality issue affecting medical equipment reprocessing.

The issue enters its third week on Tuesday. A total of 199 surgeries have been postponed since May 9.

AHS has said they are continuing to work on isolating the root cause of the water quality issue, but have not answered what is causing the issue.

Katherine Chubbs, chief zone officer for the South Zone, says water quality experts and medical equipment vendors are working to solve the issue, and says they could be getting closer to resuming normal operations.

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“We have a large amount of people within the zone, and even outside the zone, who are working on this, -in some cases, 24/7- and trying to get to the bottom of this,” she said over the phone from Oyen.

“We’ve made great progress in our numbers. We’re not 100 per cent there yet, but we’re definitely gaining ground, and hopefully this will be behind us really soon.”

Chubbs says testing is ongoing, and all equipment needs to hit the appropriate levels before normal operations can resume.

She adds 96 of the affected surgeries have been rescheduled, and 18 of the procedures have been completed.