Last Updated: Monday, March 26, 2007 | 5:07 PM MT
A doctors' office in the same health region as the troubled Vegreville hospital also was not properly sterilizing medical equipment, health minister Dave Hancock confirmed Monday.
Hancock said he can't identify the doctors involved or the office's location in the East Central Health region because the incident was under investigation by the
"But I can tell you that it involved a sterilization process with respect to equipment being used in the doctor's office for examinations and procedures," he said.
"The matter has been investigated by the college, processes stopped on a timely basis, and all patients have been identified and are in the process of notification and followup."
In total, 261 of the patients from the doctors' office are being encouraged to be tested for possible disease, he said.
Health regions asked to launch reviews
Hancock also announced Monday that every health region in the province has now been ordered to review their infection control programs by the end of April.
The review was prompted by revelations that
A team from the Health Quality Council of Alberta was in Vegreville last week to look into a superbug outbreak at the hospital and shortcomings in the hospital's sterilization room, which is now closed.
The sterilization room was supposed to be closed on Feb. 13 after a routine surgical audit uncovered problems.
But when the region's medical health officer went to the hospital on March 16 to investigate a superbug outbreak — seven patients in the 25-bed hospital contracted the infection over a one-month period beginning in mid-January — the room was still in operation, so he ordered it shut down.
Health officials are checking records of hospital patients back to April 2003. Although they say the risk to patients is low, they are sending letters to those who were exposed to surgical equipment that had been inadequately sterilized, advising them to get tested for HIV, and hepatitis B and C.
'Not the norm in the system'
Hancock said he finds the two incidents troubling, but Albertans should not lose faith in the health system.
One was at a hospital, which falls under the health region's jurisdiction, while the other was at a doctors' office, which "is an entirely different situation," he said.
"I still believe … those are not the norm in the system, that those are aberrations."
The college began the investigation into problems at the doctors' office in 2005 and only notified his office on Friday, Hancock said. He is concerned that the college did not report the incident until after the situation at the Vegreville hospital came to light, he said.
