PUYALLUP, Wash. — Multicare Good Samaritan Hospital in Puyallup has canceled all elective surgeries for the week of Nov. 18 after finding foreign material on some of its surgical trays.
The foreign material was found Friday on a small number of surgical trays coming out of the sterilization process at the hospital, said Marce Edwards, executive director of Corporate Communications for Multicare.
Edwards said despite the foreign material, the trays were fully sterilized and hospital staff pulled those trays before they made it into the hospital and in contact with patients.
As a precaution, the hospital has stopped all elective surgeries for the time being until they can pinpoint and resolve the issue. Emergency surgeries are still ongoing, Edwards said.
Elective surgeries that are affected will be rescheduled or moved to other Multicare hospitals.
Edwards reassured there has been no contamination or patient health issues related to the foreign material found on the trays.
Below is Multicare's full statement:
MultiCare Good Samaritan Hospital recently identified that surgical trays were exiting our sterile processing system with foreign matter. Our internal quality control system has caught these foreign materials prior to the surgical instruments coming into contact with patients. We have no reason to believe there’s been risk to patients. It’s important to know that the trays are sterile when they exit the processing system.
Patient safety is our top priority and, out of an abundance of caution, we have canceled all elective surgeries for the week of November 18 while we investigate the situation. Good Samaritan Hospital’s operating rooms are open and we will continue to perform emergency surgeries.
We apologize for any inconvenience to our patients who have had to reschedule elective surgeries