VA surgeries up after instrument problem fixed

The Denver veterans hospital says it’s doing more operations after resolving a cleaning problem that left trace mineral deposits on its stainless steel surgical instruments.

Spokesman Daniel Warvi said Wednesday the hospital isn’t up to its normal schedule yet because it still doesn’t have its full inventory of instruments available.

He says the hospital hopes to resume its full schedule soon.

The cleaning problem was discovered about two months ago. Since then, the hospital had been doing only surgeries that could be performed with disposable instruments.

Patients who needed immediate surgeries requiring stainless steel instruments were sent to other hospitals.

Warvi says about 48,000 instruments are being resurfaced to remove any minerals.