Faulty sink valve causes flood at Victoria General's Centennial Building

A small flood has forced the evacuation of part of the Centennial Building at the Victoria General Hospital in south-end Halifax.

A faulty valve on a sink in a patient's room on the eighth floor was being repaired by maintenance workers when the leak occurred, which resulted in about two centimetres of water on the floor.

The leak happened in the bone marrow transplant unit — a six-bed unit within the hematology and medical oncology unit. It's for bone marrow transplant patients who are admitted after their transplant, or patients recovering from bone marrow procedures.

6 patients moved

There was one patient in the room at the time of the incident. As a result, the patient and five others have been moved as a precaution, said John Gillis, a spokesperson for the Nova Scotia Health Authority.

"Once that cleanup is complete, infection control will go in and verify that it's safe for patients to return," said Gillis.

The area is now sealed off to allow time for the floor to dry. Gillis said the water did not make it into the walls, which would have been a much more serious problem.

Prior history of floods

"Any time there's any kind of maintenance occurring, we involve infection control to make sure that it's a safe patient environment to return people to," he said.

This is not the first time flooding has posed problems at the hospital. In September 2015, a burst pipe flooded three floors of the Centennial Building and forced staff to move 50 patients — including some in intensive care.

In December the same year, a pipe leaked on the third floor of the Centennial Building, flooded the second-floor ophthalmology department and forced surgeries to be postponed.