Lab test delays expected at Whitehorse hospital after equipment stopped working
The hospital says it’s prioritizing urgent needs in the meantime
Whitehorse General Hospital has reduced capacity for laboratory tests, after some of its equipment used to process blood tests stopped working.
In a post on its Facebook page on Wednesday, Yukon Hospitals said that Whitehorse General is prioritizing urgent needs and that patients may experience delays in undergoing tests and receiving results.
Staff are prioritizing admitted patients, surgeries and the emergency department, along with tests for treatments like cancer care and samples from the communities.
The post adds that the hospital's hematology analyzers are not working and capacity to conduct "complete blood count" or CBC tests is limited. Non-urgent patients who require a CBC test may have to wait until the analyzers are functioning again to undergo testing.
The delays come two weeks after Whitehorse General postponed some surgeries for a period of four days while it worked to repair a water leak in its surgical services department. Earlier this year, staff were unable to properly clean and sterilize surgical instruments on-site, and the hospital postponed many scheduled surgeries over the course of two months. That issue was resolved on April 2.
Yukon Hospitals says the laboratory equipment issue will not impact lab services in Watson Lake or Dawson City.