The Letter finally arrives from IHA

Here’s the content of the letter sent out by Interior Health Authority to those who had endoscope exams at Royal Inland:

I am writing to you on behalf of Interior Health as a valued patient of the Royal Inland Hospital in Kamloops. You are receiving this letter because you underwent an endoscopic (scoping) procedure at that facility between March 6, 2008 and July 15, 2010. We want to advise you of an issue related to the disinfection of the equipment used to perform that examination. While we believe that there is little, if any, personal risk to you related to this issue (between one chance in a million and one chance in ten million), and we do NOT believe there is a need for further testing or treatment, for the sake of transparency we believe it is importnat that you are informed.

It is standard procedure that all endoscopes go through a process of manual cleaning then disinfection after each use. Manual cleaning involves carefully washing the instrument and all its channels with a specialized cleaning solution. When this is finished, the endoscope is placed in a special machine that flushes disinfectant through the endoscope channels. Although we have been following the manufacturer’s instructions regarding the use of this disinfectant machine, we have discovered that a small, infrequently used channel of the endoscope was not being flushed with disinfectant. However, it was being thoroughly cleaned manually. We have contacted the equipment manufacturers as well as the Health Products and Food Branch Inspectorate of Health Canada to express our concerns and have subsequently changed the incompatible piece of equipment that was being used in the disinfection process.

In response to this issue, we obtained information and advice from Interior Health’s Director of Infection Prevention and Control and the Senior Medical Health Officer, underwent a thorough external review by an independent physician expert in Medical Microbiology and Infection Control, consulted with the B.C. Centre for Disease Control and the Center for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, and obtained an external ethics review. After this evaluation, we are confident that the risk of any infectious disease transmission to you is extremely remote, and we do NOT believe there is a need for any specific testing, treatment or follow-up.

Please accept my apology on behalf of Interior Health for any anxiety or concern that this information may cause for you. If you have any questions we would be pleased to discuss them with you. You may reach us via our Patient Care Quality office dedicated telephone line Monday to Friday from 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. at the following toll-free number: 1-877-442-2001. If you do not reach someone directly, please leave a message and your call will be returned as quickly as possible.

Yours sincerely,

Jeremy Etherington MD CCFP(EM) FCFPC

Vice President Medicine and Quality

Interior Health Authority