Some surgeries at the LBJ Hospital were delayed or did not take place at all because a critical part of the operating room was not working.
The autoclave, a machine that sterilizes surgical tools, was down fior about a month.
According to our sources, only one operating room was functioning and only emergency operations were performed, while others were postponed or canceled.
When asked about the situation, CEO of LBJ hospital Faumuina John Faumuina confirmed that the autoclave in the operating room was down and this restricted operations in the operating room. He said the operations that were conducted used tools that were sterilized in the dental department’s autoclave.
Parts for the autoclave were ordered but according to the CEO they did nit did not make the March 20 Cargo flight.
Faumuina reported that the parts finally arrived on the March 27 flight and the hospital engineering crew started working on fixing and calibrating the auto clave right away.
Repair work is still ongoing.
