A piece of electrical equipment which caused a fire at Calvary Public Hospital is being investigated amid concerns it may be used in other hospitals, Calvary Care ACT Regional CEO Ross Hawkins says.
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Fire and Rescue have concluded their investigation into a fire at Calvary Hospital, and are passing a report to the Coroner, Emergency Services ACT said. The Coroner will decide whether or not to investigate it.
Three of seven Calvary Public Hospital operating theatres will reopen on Friday, following a fire on December 6 which shut down theatres and the birthing suite.
What is reopening and when?
Operating theatres one, two and three will reopen Friday, with the third to be used as a temporary surgical store.
The hospital will be able to perform emergency surgeries, and the birthing suite will reopen Friday afternoon following air quality test results.
It will take between four and six weeks to reopen theatre four and the surgical store. The remaining operating theatres, which were closest to the fire, are expected to be closed until April.
Maternity patients
Calvary Care Regional ACT CEO Ross Hawkins said the public hospital was working to schedule elective surgeries, and would continue to utilise Calvary Bruce Private Hospital and Calvary John James Hospital facilities.
There are about 35 women a week who give birth at Calvary Public, Mr Hawkins said. Since December 6, they have been bypassed to Canberra Hospital.
The Calvary Birth Suite and Calvary Birth Centre were closed because the hospital did not have the operating theatre capability to perform emergency C-sections.
Damage caused by the fire
Mr Hawkins said the fire in theatre six was localised and caused by an electrical issue with a piece of equipment. There was one person in a different theatre being operated on at the time.
"There was [not] a complete burnout of the whole room. It's very much localised," he said.
However, some of the sprinklers which extinguished the fire caused water damage to surrounding theatres, Mr Hawkins said.
"A lot of water was generated from the fire suppression system that kicked in. And when we want to make sure there is absolutely no water damage to those facilities," he said.
Concerns around faulty equipment
The piece of equipment which is believed to have caused the fire will no longer be used.
"We're doing further investigations and working with various kind of experts on what went wrong with that equipment," he said.
"We won't be using that equipment in any theatre until we've got that confirmed [what caused the fire] ... We won't be using any theatre or any equipment until we're reassured that it's clinically safe.
Do you know more?
"We want to check through what took place in that particular part of equipment, and what might it mean for other locations."
Mr Hawkins said because some theatres had been upgraded, they would be using more modern equipment.
"Over time, a lot of our theatres have had various upgrades. So there's a different set of equipment in different theatres," he said.
Support for struggling staff
He said some public hospital staff worked at the private Calvary hospitals and Canberra Hospital during the interim.
"Our colleagues over in Canberra Health Services have been absolutely phenomenal in really helping us through this ... [we were] all working as a team," Mr Hawkins said.
"There's been a real sense of us collectively all working as a team to better support the Canberra community."
The CEO also said the fire was difficult for some staff, either because they had witnessed the blaze or had to work in a different hospital.
"It's difficult for our midwives ... and it's difficult people who want to be operating in operating theatres every day [but] people have acted with the greatest amount of professionalism, and [that's] a real testament to their service and their profession," Mr Hawkins said.
He said staff had been offered on-site support through Calvary's employee assistance program, including an on-site clinical psychologist.
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"We've been checking in on a number of our staff who have been directly impacted by this, as well," Mr Hawkins said.
"And some of the staff actually would have had additional leave and time off in order for them to be able to kind of work through this."
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