SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - The parts have arrived and all three sterilization machines at Stanton Territorial Hospital are back up and running, according to CEO Kay Lewis.

This means elective surgeries are back on after a month-and-a-half of cancellations. The hospital has been only performing emergency surgeries since mid-January while the facility waited on repairs to two of the three machines used to sterilize medical equipment.

"We're back to full operations this week," said Lewis.

"The parts have arrived and we have installed them on one of the sterilizers."

She said the second sterilizer "seems to be working not too badly" now, and is staying in service to avoid further cancellations.

The additional filtration system for the machine will be installed on the weekend, she said.

"The parts are in and the sterilizers are working but the additional filtration system we'll finish it off and the last sterilizer on the weekend, we don't want to take it out of the system so we can avoid cancelling this week," said Lewis.

Wet medical equipment was being produced by the sterilization machines, which makes them more susceptible to picking up germs due to the moisture.

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