Sudbury’s hospital receives $1M gift to support surgical safety, capacity

Health Sciences North Foundation received a $1.041 million from the FDC Foundation to support modernizing the hospital’s medical device department.

On Thursday, Health Sciences North Foundation received a $1.041 million donation from the FDC Foundation to support modernizing the hospital’s medical device reprocessing department.

The donation is paying for a new high-capacity cart washing system and a low-temperature sterilizer that officials say will modernize workflow, reduce labour and ensure surgical instruments are prepared to the highest safety standards.

“We’re making sure that the right instrumentation is properly assembled, sterilized, ready to go for any type of procedure,” said Steve Sherrington, who manages the department.

Sterilized equipment

“So people think about the operating room, and that is 85 per cent of what we do. But we also have trays and we have things like small bedpans and wash basins that are used throughout the whole hospital.”

Keeping items clean and sterilized is vital, Sherrington said.

The 75-person department processes nearly 1,000 sets of instruments daily. Whenever the current washer breaks down – as it has seven times in the last year -- cleaning was done by hand, often for days at a time.

Using the washer not only saves washing time, it also allows staff to focus on setup.

“Someone has to make sure it’s the proper one, reassemble it in a set, rewrap it, get it ready to be sterilized, and then you need to wait for that one to finish before you can put more stuff in,” Sherrington said.

Several donations

The FDC Foundation has made several donations to HSN since 2019, starting with a gift to the donor milk program and a significant donation to the MRI campaign.

HSN Foundation CEO Anthony Keating said more donations will be made in the future.

“They actually didn’t want to be here today because they really wanted the celebration to be about the people who are doing the work,” Keating said.

“They didn’t want the attention to be on them … But across Canada, they are a great donor, a great partner in health care and we’re just so grateful and thankful for them.”

Staff said the new sterilizer is already being put to good use and the hope is to have the new washer up and running in April.