By Sarah Rolles

Water woes at Victoria Hospital

Feb 26, 2012 | 7:49 AM

Victoria Hospital is one of many facilities in Prince Albert that has been affected by the boil water order issued earlier this month.

Since it was issued, all precautions were put in place; bottled water was brought in for patients and all coffee, ice, and fountain pop machines were shut off since they were all connected directly to the city’s water supply.

“Our dietary and nursing staff has been doing the majority of the work, they are our front line people and they have been handling the water situation quite well,” said Steve Olde, director of maintenance and bio med at Victoria Hospital.

Soon however, things are hoped to become a bit easier for staff at the hospital.

“We are purchasing a filtrations system,” Olde said. “There are three components; we will have a pre-filter then there will be a UV light and then a final filter.”

Warmer weather ahead

Double-digit highs in the forecast as warmer weather finally arrives

7h ago

Trial dates

Trial dates confirmed for Prince Albert murder case

8h ago

Series tied 3-3

Late game heroics brings Raiders and Oil Kings back to Prince Albert for Game 7

22h ago

“That will be serving to our dietary department. It will run to our ice machine, our coffee machine, probably to our coke machine and it is also going to assist in our vegetable cleaning and our cooking as well.”

Since the boil water order was issued the hospital has brought in 150 cases of bottled water a week, which is roughly 3,600 bottles of water for their patients.

“Plus we also have the big jugs of water that we use for coffee at the nursing home or in the cafeteria,” said Brenda McDougall, food supervisor at the hospital.

“We also on a daily basis are boiling gallons and gallons of water to wash everything, all of our fruits and vegetables, all our wagons, all are counter tops. Any of the cleaning that we do everything has been boiled.”

The last couple of weeks the hospital has also been unable to serve coffee in their cafeteria.
“It’s too much for us we couldn’t keep up with the volume it’s too large,” McDougall said.

“Herb Basset gets coffee in the morning and tea at lunch but other than that we are not serving coffee to anyone in the hospital,” she added.

Olde said it is hoped the new filtration system for the hospital will be up and running in the next couple of days.

“The parts actually should be arriving for it tomorrow so, I am hoping that by Monday or Tuesday we will have it installed,” he said.

This makes McDougall and many other staff at the hospital very happy.

“It will help major because we will be able to have a coffee pot for the patients, we will also have a coffee pot in the cafeteria for the staff and we will have one ice machine. Which will do the hospital because we are not the only department that needs ice we are part of it, but it’s maternity its ICU it’s s all the areas that need ice for their patients.”

Dialysis at the hospital

Another concern raised since the boil water advisory, is what precautions the hospital has taken for medical procedures that involve using water; such as dialysis.

Currently the hospital has 12 dialysis units that service two sets of patients per day and roughly 144 patients per week.

Olde ensured that the filtration system used in dialysis is top notch and has always been way above the standard.

“Our dialysis unit is an extremely high tech unit,” Olde said.

Olde explained the dialysis unit has always filtered the water. He also said as a precaution extra filters have been added.

“Since the water situation happened we have purchased extra filters, which is not so much for the dialysis unit itself, but it’s for a backup.”

“If we were to go on a backup system this additional filter is kind of again a redundancy again to the existing system that is there as a safety so it’s a double safety almost.”

Shawn Phaneuf, nursing unit manager of dialysis and chemotherapy said the same.

“The reverse osmosis system that the hospital uses for dialysis is one of the best you can purchase,” Phaneuf said. “Our filters are far above what the minimum standard is for filtering out bacteria and parasites.”

news@panow.com