After finding unknown residue, Aurora veteran’s hospital reschedules surgeries
DENVER (KDVR) — The Rocky Mountain Regional Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Aurora halted its surgeries as of Friday after finding an unknown residue on medical equipment.
According to a statement by VA Press Secretary Terrence Hayes, staff members found a “residue” on some reusable medical equipment while doing pre-surgery inspections. Because of this, surgeries using reusable medical equipment were “temporarily canceled.”
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“Importantly, in all cases with the residue, staff have identified the concern prior to the surgery and rescheduled – and no known patient harm has resulted from this issue,” Hayes said. “Patient safety is our number one priority, so we encourage staff to ‘stop the line’ any time they have concerns – and we commend our staff for identifying this issue and ensuring our Veterans are safe.”
Surgeries that use disposable medical equipment are continuing. Emergency surgeries were being referred to community hospitals, and the impacted veterans were being contacted for rescheduling, according to Hayes.
In the meantime, the engineering team, Sterile Processing Service and clinical staff are all working to identify the cause of the residue and correct it moving forward.
According to the hospital’s website, the center has 227 beds distributed among internal medicine, surgery, rehabilitative medicine, and other services. In the hospital’s 2023 report, a total of 101,411 veterans were served during the year.
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