A fire at Bartlett Regional Hospital in Juneau, Alaska, delayed elective surgeries at the facility for several days.
According to the hospital, the fire occurred last Thursday inside a utility closet within its surgical services unit due to a worker accidentally cutting into electrical heat tape.
“A Code Red alert was issued, and the encapsulated fire was quickly responded to by hospital maintenance staff and contained by Capital City Fire & Rescue personnel,” the hospital stated. “Surgical services patients and staff were immediately evacuated. As an additional safety precaution, an evacuation of all hospital patients, staff, and visitors was put into motion. Those individuals were quickly brought back into the hospital, and outpatient units were vacated and appointments were canceled for the remainder of the day. The ‘all clear’ was issued for the Code Red alert at 3:40 p.m. An evaluation of the damage within the Surgical Services unit is ongoing.”
The worker who accidentally started the fire was treated and released from the hospital’s emergency department. The hospital reported no injuries to patients, visitors, or other staff due to the fire.
All hospital services remained open except for elective surgeries.
The hospital posted an update on its Facebook page Friday that after fire and rescue personnel departed the campus, a construction crew arrived to start repair work in the surgical services unit. It stated that the crew was scheduled to complete its work over the weekend, at which time the hospital’s facilities staff would resume their own repair work and preparations to reopen the unit.
The hospital reported that although the ORs inside the surgical services unit suffered no physical damage, many supplies within the unit were contaminated by the fire, and that it was “working as quickly as possible to replace surgical supply inventory.” It stated that the unit would remain closed for elective surgeries through Tues., Apr. 21, and that hospital staff were contacting affected patients to reschedule their surgeries.
The hospital has not provided an update since but had stated that it would communicate any further delays.
