Another case of contaminated surgical equipment occurred Wednesday at Royal Inland Hospital, two weeks after a similar discovery shut down elective surgeries and prompted internal and external audits.

RIH chief of surgery Dr. Simon Treissman said the latest incident is disheartening as the hospital is in a prescheduled two-week slowdown and surgical cases pile up.

“Community members should be concerned,” he said. “It’s a big crisis. It’s not going to come and go quickly.”

Surgeons have been reduced to one-quarter of their cases in the short term, he said.

“It’s pretty demoralizing.”

On Wednesday morning, a woman whose shoulder replacement operation was cancelled two weeks ago because of the dirty-instrument discoveries was being prepared for surgery. Before she was anesthetized, the surgical instruments were opened and cement used for prosthetics was found in the instrument pan.

Surgeon Dr. Derek Plausinis said it was his only case for the day because his OR time was cut back to half a day. The patient has been waiting for her surgery since September 2008.

Interior Health’s chief executive officer Dr. Robert Halpenny said other surgeries were not cancelled as a result of this latest find.

The cement was sterilized, had been through the washing process at least three times and did not put patients at risk, he said.

“It may have been a case where, in a previous case, the cement was being mixed over the tray of instruments and some dropped onto the tray” and stuck to the instrument, he said.

Halpenny said it’s due to heightened awareness that this incident was caught.

An internal audit into RIH’s sterilization unit is complete and the external audit is soon to be contracted out. The unit is at maximum capacity and is now at the top of Interior Health’s priority list, he said.

“The fact that we put this as No. 1 on our capital list, number two is the commitment to the new ICU, there are a lot of positive things going on there (Kamloops).”

Kamloops-North Thompson MLA Terry Lake said he and fellow Liberal MLA Kevin Krueger met with doctors and management from Royal Inland and went over their priorities.

“The sterilization equipment wasn’t on the top of the list, but I understand it has risen to the top now. We’ll make sure they get the equipment they need.”

Lake said ensuring RIH gets its fair share of health dollars and remains a first-class tertiary facility is a priority.

He believes RIH needs a long-term plan, “a five-, 10- and 15-year vision for Royal Inland Hospital and how it serves our region and what that means in terms of capital.”

NDP health critic Adrian Dix said Interior Health did an internal audit in 2008 and won’t release those recommendations now.

IHA needs to release those recommendations and listen to staff at the hospital, he said.

“Raise the standard of cleanliness and sterilization in all our public hospitals. Those standards have been downgraded in the last eight years,” he said.

“They need to get on it now. These are serious issues. They’ve failed the people of Kamloops again and again.”