Alice Ho Miu Ling Nethersole Hospital service arrangement for cataract surgery
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The spokesperson for Alice Ho Miu Ling Nethersole Hospital made the following announcement today (November 4) regarding the service arrangement for cataract surgery:
The Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences recently conducted routine surveillance of its surgical procedures. It was detected that four male patients (aged 57 to 86) had developed endophthalmitis after undergoing cataract surgery in the operating theatre of the eye outpatient clinic between May 24 and October 31. Appropriate treatment and follow-up have been arranged for the patients concerned. Two of them have recovered while the other two are still being treated and are in stable condition.
Preliminary investigations revealed that the workflow of the operating theatre complied with the prevailing guidelines, and no abnormalities were found in its facilities and environment. Since the witnessed complication rate is higher than the baseline, as a precautionary measure to ensure patient safety, the hospital has suspended the service of the operating theatre concerned from November 1 to 11 to conduct thorough environmental cleaning, sampling and testing.
The hospital has contacted 41 affected patients to explain the situation. Surgery for two patients of urgent priority have been arranged as scheduled in another operating theatre in the hospital. For the remaining 39 non-urgent cases, appropriate operation arrangements have been made based on their clinical condition.
The hospital has reported the incident to the Hospital Authority Head Office for follow-up. The hospital's infection control team and the relevant departments will continue to review the cases and closely monitor the situation. The hospital would like to apologise to the affected patients for the inconvenience caused.
Ends/Friday, November 4, 2016
Issued at HKT 18:49
Issued at HKT 18:49
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