Hospital unit gets upgrade
Millions spent on sterilising
A TOOWOOMBA Hospital department which last year sterilised almost 74,000 items is getting a $3.14 million upgrade.
“It’s something that people may not give too much thought to, but the cleaning and sterilisation of reusable medical devices is one of the most vital services in any hospital,” said Toowoomba Hospital executive director Shirley-Anne Gardiner.
“We currently have three sterilisers operating but our upgraded service will have five, and we’ll have the infrastructure to bring a sixth online in the future,” Ms Gardiner said.
The upgrade of the Central Sterilising Department is expected to be completed in mid-August.
CSD nurse unit manager Denise Iseppi said the team had quickly adjusted to life with an upgrade going on around them.
“Having the upgrade occurring around the processing means there has been a temporary reduction in floor space of around 50
per cent, but the efforts of the team have been tremendous,” Ms Iseppi said. “The bulk of our work is done for the hospital’s operating theatres and we also service the inpatient wards and outpatient clinics.
“The service encompasses
the initial cleaning of the device or instrument, right through to the final step which is sterilisation, and it generally takes around three hours from the time an item arrives at CSD until it is ready to be used again.
“Throughout the course of
the upgrade there has been no reduction in throughput, in fact there has been an increased demand for our services and we’ve been putting more items through than usual.
“In 2016 we processed 73,979 items and in the five
weeks leading up to the start of June this year we processed 500 more items that in the same period last year, even with a temporary reduction of floor space, so hats off to the team for a great effort.”