Heavy rainfall last month led to delays for a string of operations scheduled for a single day at King Edward VII Memorial Hospital.

A downpour on November 19 caused leaks in two of the Bermuda Hospitals Board’s five operating rooms, at a time when scheduled upgrades reduced their availability to four.

Separately, a breakdown of the hospital’s air handling equipment on November 28 led to the postponement of eight elective operations.

The BHB emphasised that no urgent procedures were affected, with at least one operating room remaining available throughout.

Meanwhile, the bill for all repair costs was handled by Paget Health Services, the contractor for the acute care wing, which covers maintenance expenses for the building.

November rainfall also delayed an annual roof inspection at the hospital.

The BHB said servicing its operating rooms over “the next few months” entailed cutting the number of available operating rooms to four.

“This reduction in capacity has made it more challenging to manage some unexpected issues over the last month.”

Ahead of the servicing project, the hospital increased the number of elective surgeries performed during the summer and autumn to reduce patient inconvenience.

The BHB said the operating room upgrades had not required any postponements of operations.

A leak early in November affected one room and was traced to the patient garden on the third floor; the problem was repaired and no operations were called off.

However, the cloudburst on November 19 led to the rescheduling of 16 surgeries, which had been due to take place the next day after two operating rooms were affected.

According to the hospital’s performance figures, no surgeries went ahead on that date.

The roof inspection has since been carried out and “all repairs have been completed”, the BHB said — although a “very small ingress of water” was found last week in one of the rooms.

“Unrelated to this, an air handling equipment malfunction impacted two operating rooms on Tuesday, November 28,” the board said.

“Unfortunately on the same day a sensor had to be replaced in a third OR which caused a temporary interruption.

“The air handler was fixed within the day, but this impacted eight people who had elective procedures booked and had to be rescheduled.”

The BHB apologised to anyone whose surgery was affected and added: “The maintenance and repair of the ACW is the responsibility of Paget Health Services, but we appreciate how frustrating it is for patients.

“We have discussed with Paget Health Services the importance of maintaining our surgery service for Bermuda at all times.”

The BHB experienced cancellations of surgeries because of shortages of specialist items during global supply chain issues last year.

The Covid-19 pandemic was also blamed for a backlog of surgeries.

However, patient cancellations typically featured as the top reason for postponements