Hull Hospital recovering after flooding closes intensive care

Water that cascaded down from a broken pipe on the fourth floor Thursday hit the Hull Hospital in its most sensitive areas — intensive care and the surgical floor.

It didn’t inconvenience large numbers of patients in those areas, a top hospital official said Friday, but those who were affected are the ones most in need of help.

By noon Friday, emergency surgery was on track and “semiurgent” surgery was expected to resume Friday afternoon.

“There are no emergency cases that we have been unable to handle,” said Dr. Guy Morissette, the director of medical services.

Elective surgery may resume Monday.

About 30 patients had their operations cancelled by Friday.

“Intensive care is still closed. The patients have been relocated to several units that were able to receive them, and services are provided as if they were in their own area on the third floor,” Morissette said.

About 10 to 15 intensive care patients were moved to other units or to other hospitals.

Morissette said about 100 to 150 outpatients had to cancel appointments. These include endoscopy appointments, sleep apnea and others. tspears@postmedia.com twitter.com/TomSpears1