Royal Victoria Regional Health Centre (RVH) in Barrie is dealing with a cooling malfunction.
Early Sunday, one of RVH’s cooling units malfunctioned, causing increased temperatures and high humidity levels in some older areas of the health centre.
As a response, RVH cancelled all non-urgent surgical procedures scheduled for Monday and Tuesday and are proceeding with emergency procedures only.
The majority of RVH’s patient care services are not affected by this malfunction, including cancer treatment.
All impacted surgical patients are being contacted directly by RVH and the health centre is working with physicians to reschedule procedures as soon as possible.
“RVH apologizes for any inconvenience resulting from the cancellation of non-emergency procedures, but patient safety must be our highest priority and we always err on the side of caution,” says Dr. Jeff Tyberg, RVH’s Chief of Staff. “While this situation has impacted RVH’s scheduled surgeries, it’s important to note that there has been no impact on most of RVH’s patients who continue to be cared for as safely and compassionately as always.”
RVH is currently working with technicians to repair the cooling unit and they are hopeful the system can be back running normally by mid-week.
In the meantime, the hospital continues to closely monitor and assess the situation.