An investigation by media outlet Spotlight PA found that “Penn State Health struggled to maintain a usable supply of sterile instruments for the thousands of surgeries it performed at the Milton S. Hershey Medical Center throughout 2025 and into this year.”
“Internal documents” obtained by Spotlight PA discussed “persistent, mysterious black specks dotting trays of surgical instruments,” “a lengthy, sometimes dayslong backlog for cleaning and sterilizing medical tools,” and “operating room staff piecing together sets of sterile [instruments] because usable ones weren’t readily available.” In one case, Spotlight PA reports, “an emergency brain operation was done with ‘contaminated’ surgical tools.”
Sterilization issues at the hospital “inflamed disagreements between units and provoked fear among employees” according to Spotlight PA, with one five-year employee of the facility telling the outlet, “When I see this, what’s happening, this is not us. This is not how it used to be when I was hired there.”
Spotlight PA contacted “more than 50 people connected to Hershey Medical Center’s operating rooms and sterilization department” for the investigation, with seven replying on condition of anonymity due to fears of retaliation.
A Penn State Health spokesperson told Spotlight PA via email that “all surgical instruments undergo rigorous sterilization processes prior to use” at Hershey Medical Center, and that “any tray that does not adhere to our standards for safety is removed from use.”
It’s a long story with a lot of harrowing (but anonymously sourced) details. Read it in full here.
