West Suffolk Hospital in Bury St Edmunds cancels more operations after pigeon faeces incident

Nearly 60 planned operations have so far been cancelled at a hospital after pigeon faeces fell into a sterile storage room.

Twenty five planned procedures at West Suffolk Hospital in Bury St Edmunds were postponed yesterday due to the incident, with another 32 postponed today.

Normal service will resume early next week as the hospital’s sterile services team work extra hours to re-sterilise all equipment from the affected room.

Staff at the hospital realised over the weekend that pigeons were in the roof space above the sterile storage room ceiling.

Some faeces fell through joins in the ceiling tiles and the sterile services team are re-sterilising all the equipment from the room, which will be deep cleaned.

One operation was also cancelled at the weekend due to the issue and there was no clinical harm to the person involved.

Yesterday, a West Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust spokesperson said some of the planned operations were postponed to prioritise using the remaining sterile equipment for emergency patients.

They said: “At no point did the birds enter the sterile storage room or any of our operating theatres.

“As soon as staff became aware of what had happened the room was closed.

“Pest control has been called out and the area where the birds gained access into the roof space has been closed off so it cannot happen again.

“Those patients who have had their procedures postponed because of this incident will be rescheduled as soon as possible.”

They added that the incident was not related to the presence of the faulty concrete RAAC at the hospital.