Hospital Authority completed inspection of surgical lights concerned
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The Hospital Authority (HA) spokesman made the following announcement today (February 20) regarding completed inspection of all surgical lights concerned in public hospital operation rooms:
The HA has completed the inspection of a total of 50 surgical lights of various models manufactured by Getinge in operation rooms of public hospitals. It is confirmed that 34 of them are safe and can continue to be used, while screws used in the remaining 16 surgical lights of various models may be at risk. Therefore, the HA has suspended the use of the surgical lights concerned and urged the vendor to replace the screws at risk as soon as possible to ensure the safety of patients and staff.
The Senior Manager (Engineering) of the HA, Mr Yuen Pak-leung said, "The HA is very concerned about the incident, and the safety of patients and staff is our prime concern. In response to expert's advice, the team responsible for maintaining and repairing medical devices has thoroughly inspected all surgical lights from the same manufacturer in the past few days. Patients and staff can rest assured that the operation rooms, which are maintaining normal service, have been confirmed to be safe while the surgical lights with safety concern have been suspended."
The HA has always established procedures for regular inspection and maintenance of surgical lights. After the incident, the vendor has been requested to increase the number of inspection to once in every one to two weeks from now on. In addition, in order to address the safety concern, the HA has arranged inspection for surgical lights of other manufacturers, which is expected to be completed in the next few days. The HA has also formulated the latest guidelines on using surgical lights for staff reference to strengthen the protection of patients and staff.
The Chief Manager (Clinical Effectiveness and Technology Management) of the HA, Dr Jeffery Lai said, "The operation rooms that are confirmed to be safe has resumed service. However, services in 16 operation rooms distributed in different hospital clusters are still temporarily suspended. A few amount of elective operations are affected and need to be rescheduled. Public hospitals have successively informed patients affected and rescheduled the operations and will provide assistance to patients."
The HA Head Office received a report from United Christian Hospital last Saturday (February 18) and has immediately conducted a comprehensive inspection with the vendor in all public hospitals. Independent engineering expert on incident analysis, Dr Eric Lim, is also entrusted to investigate and to understand the cause of the incident. The HA has requested the vendor to submit a report. The HA will stringently follow up on the incident and take appropriate actions to make the vendor hold responsible in order to prevent similar occurrence.
The surgical light at United Christian Hospital which felt down was manufactured and maintained by the manufacturer Getinge. It has been used since 2015 and last underwent maintenance in December 2022.
Ends/Monday, February 20, 2023
Issued at HKT 22:36
Issued at HKT 22:36
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