I am sorry to anyone who has had their surgeries delayed due to this! :(
 

St. Joe’s on the road to recovery after devastating flood

Stacey Escott

St. Joseph's hospital is now performing both emergency and urgent surgeries in four reopened surgical suites and despite the disastrous flood, hospital officials say their goal is to be near full capacity within the next week.

There are still no estimates of the damage or any answers as to exactly how the flood started, but St. Joseph's Healthcare Hamilton president Dr. David Higgins said their first priority is restoring all services.

"We've reopened urgent and emergency surgery, we've been working with Hamilton Health Sciences on that and we continue to work very hard 24/7 with all of our staff, outside agents and contractors to restore service," Higgins said Saturday.

In a media tour Sunday of the severely damaged $72-million surgical wing, hospital staff including Higgins started off on "ground zero," where the catastrophe started on Jan. 8.

Walking down the hall on the second level of the surgical tower where day surgeries are performed, Higgins described how the water from a burst standpipe first appeared on the floor and went down through the ceilings into the operating rooms and emergency room below until it ended up in the Sterile Reprocessing Department two floors down, all in about 15 minutes. It would be 20 minutes before the hospital discovered where the water was coming from.

"We had approximately 50 patients in the ER at that time, including the waiting room and patients who were sick waiting for beds, we had to evacuate those patients out, we had to make sure patients and staff were safe and we had to ensure that we salvaged equipment that was extremely expensive," Higgins said.

The investigation as to how the fire standpipe burst is ongoing but restoring services is priority No. 1. There are more than 160 hose standpipes in the hospital that have all been inspected.

It is also not known how much equipment has been lost. Everything needs to be tested to make sure it's safe and checked for water damage.

"I can confidently say staff saved millions of dollars' worth of equipment and supplies in a very short time," Higgins said.

The Sterile Core, the area between the rows of operating rooms that's filled with sterile supplies, was completely emptied out after being damaged by the flooding. As officials were explaining the cleanup process in one of the operating rooms, water continued to drip from the ceiling. Salvaged equipment that hung from the ceiling by hydraulic arms was bagged in plastic, ready to be tested.

Despite the damage in 12 operating rooms and losing 60 per cent of the emergency room, among other losses, it was business as usual as staff worked together to make the best of a difficult situation. Contractors are working non-stop, doing their best to get the hospital back on its feet.

Four surgeries were performed on Saturday and that number is expected to grow daily.

"When you think about the precision to respond to something like this, it really is remarkable … It's a very, very rigorous process in each and every area," said Kevin Smith, chief executive officer of St. Joseph's Health System. "We want to get up to operation very quickly but we also want to say we've fixed this for the long term."

St. Joseph's had to cancel 125 scheduled surgeries from Wednesday to Friday and Hamilton Health Sciences cancelled 88 to free up beds and staff in order to cope with the extra load caused by the closures.

Since the suites have been reopened, patients are being contacted directly regarding the status of their surgery. Ambulances will continue to be diverted to the General and Juravinski hospitals except those patients *****quire emergency psychiatry services, but Higgins said that should change in a few days.

The next step is expanding the number of emergency and operating rooms. As far as the final bill goes, staff need to determine how much equipment has been lost after testing is complete and they have to wait for the invoices to come in from the contractors helping to repair the damage, which could take months.

"At the end of the day, what is the taxpayer on the hook for, I don't know yet but hopefully relatively little because we are very, very well insured," said Higgins.

This is so sad for all those involved!!

Wow, isn't that a shame. Heart goes out to those affected.

Thanks for posting this article. I was supposed to have my surgery on Jan 15.  I was on day 20 of Opti  I haven't heard when it will be rescheduled to next. Can't blame anyone, just a really horrible event.