Surgeries cancelled as PEH deals with air-conditioning failure

Wednesday 07 November 2018

Staff have been forced to cancel all elective surgery, and the majority of day patient cases on Wednesday 7 November, after a fault was found in a piece of equipment within the plant room at Guernsey's Princess Elizabeth Hospital.

At around 17:00 on Tuesday 6 November staff found the heat exchanger in the air conditioning unit in the plant room above the main theatres of the PEH had failed.

That caused water damage to the theatres below, forcing their closure, with plans having to be immediately put in place for the next 24 hours at least.

A statement released on Tuesday night by the Committee for Health and Social Care said hospital staff, from the PEH Estates team, "immediately responded, identified and stopped the leak but are now in the process of draining the excess water before the theatres can be dried, repaired, and then deep cleaned before they can be re-commissioned for use."

It's not clear at this time how long the theatres will be closed. 

HSC said the damage means it has been forced to "cancel all elective surgery, and the majority of day patient cases on Wednesday. The PEH expect to be able to restore its main theatre capacity on Thursday, but this will be dependent on the extent of damage requiring repair. "

Emergency plans have been put in place. 

The statement from HSC said that in order to ensure the island's hospital has "continued capacity for emergency cases," staff will use the theatre in the PEH Day Patient Unit whilst repairs to the main theatres are ongoing. 

HSC said it would like to apologise to "all islanders who will have elective operations postponed as a result of this incident. Our Admissions Team have either contacted or left messages for all affected patients who were scheduled for operations on Wednesday."

HSC President, Deputy Heidi Soulsby also said the postponements were unavoidable but that staff would be working into the night to get everything restored. 

Any patient who hadn't been contacted or anyone with any questions can call the PEH Admissions team on 725241 from 07:30 on Wednesday 7 November.