Dunedin hospital staff report hundreds of equipment sterilisation failures a year

• The sterilisation centre at Dunedin Hospital is not up to standard, a report by Te Whatu Ora shows
• About 500 incidents a year are reported by staff of theatre equipment being contaminated
• In 2021, five surgeries started before medical staff realised their instruments were not properly sterilised
• A new Dunedin Hospital is currently being built, but Lester Levy says the costs are under review

Dunedin hospital staff have reported hundreds of incidents of theatre instruments not being properly sterilised, according to a leaked report from Te Whatu Ora.

It found the unit is not fit for purpose, and about 500 incidents a year were reported where “instruments intended for theatre use have been found to be contaminated”.

It comes after initial reports in 2021 of five similar incidents.

But Te Whatu Ora could not say whether any of the recent incidents had resulted in patient harm, asking for the question to be submitted as an Official Information Act request, which gives them at least 20 working days to provide an answer.

The “Intensive Support Team planned care report for Southern District” was written by Te Whatu Ora in June, after a team visited the region’s two main hospitals, spending three days at Dunedin Hospital and a further day at Southland Hospital in Invercargill.

It found that Dunedin Hospital’s central sterile services department (CSSD) was “non-compliant”, with no system for tracking theatre instruments, and concluded “the unit is clearly not fit for purpose”.

Health agency says process underway to re-fit the space

The issue was first reported in 2021, and then a project to upgrade the sterilisation centre was reassessed in 2022.

The report said previous business cases had been refused as costs had increased.

Te Whatu Ora said this week that there had been three previous business cases, but a revised case was drafted in June.

In a statement, national director for hospital and specialist services Fionnagh Dougan said it was “a critical project for Te Waipounamu”.

“A detailed business case has been developed and Health NZ is working through the process for funding to re-fit this space,” she said.

Health minister Shane Reti responded with a statement: “Although I have not been briefed on this specific document, I am aware of longstanding issues around Health New Zealand’s delivery of adequate health services to the people of Southern.”

He said the report reinforced his determination that the government’s health targets for faster assessment and treatment “must bring about change, after six years of total failure by Labour”.

All projects under review – commissioner

A new Dunedin hospital is under construction, and previous reports have linked hopes for a new sterilisation unit to the new hospital.

But commissioner Lester Levy, who replaced the sacked board of Te Whatu Ora, told Nine to Noon “all capital development projects of all type are subject to review right at the moment”.

When pressed specifically on whether Dunedin Hospital’s rebuild was under review, he said: “Everything is under review.”

“Of course, there is going to be a new hospital, but we have to see what the costs come in at.”