It is the second time in two weeks that a case of contaminated surgical equipment has been discovered at Royal Inland Hospital (RIH), BC. Just two weeks ago, a similar discovery shut down elective surgeries and prompted internal and external audits. RIH chief of surgery Dr. Simon Treissman said the latest incident is disheartening as the hospital is in a prescheduled two-week slowdown and surgical cases pile up. Surgeons have been reduced to one-quarter of their cases in the short term, he said. “It’s pretty demoralizing.” Poor sterilization methods and unclean equipment pose a high risk to Canadian patients and the reason why MEDEC stresses that medical devices manufactured for one-time use should not be re-used. Read the MEDEC position on single use medical devices here and read more on the BC story here and here.