Precautionary safety measures have been put in place within maternity services at Edinburgh Royal Infirmary after discolouration was noticed in hot water.<\/p>\n
The neonatal unit has temporarily paused external admissions and the birthing pools are out of use as investigations continue.<\/p>\n
NHS Lothian said discolouration was identified in hot water from a number of outlets within the maternity unit on Wednesday afternoon.<\/p>\n
Cold and drinking water are not affected and investigations are under way to establish the cause of the hot water issue.<\/p>\n
The health board said medical and infection prevention and control teams have assessed that any risk to mothers, babies, visitors or staff is “very low”.<\/p>\n
It added that maternity services continue to operate with some short-term precautions in place.<\/p>\n
Michelle Carr, the health board’s acute services chief officer, moved to reassure patients, families, and staff that “health and safety is our highest priority” and that “a highly-precautionary approach” was being taken.<\/p>\n
“Both NHS Lothian and our estates contractor are working hard to resolve the issue swiftly and the situation is being closely monitored,” she said.<\/p>\n
“Enhanced infection prevention and control measures are also in place.<\/p>\n
“We are grateful to our patients and visitors for their understanding and co-operation.”<\/p>\n
The health board said precautionary safety measures were introduced quickly and will remain in place while further assessments and actions are carried out.<\/p>\n
An incident management team made up of infection control, water engineers, microbiological and clinical teams has been established to oversee the investigation promptly.<\/p>\n
NHS Lothian’s maternity services operate across two hospital sites.<\/p>\n
The health board said patients may be treated at either Edinburgh Royal Infirmary or St John’s Hospital sites depending upon clinical need and capacity, as usual.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Precautionary safety measures have been put in place within maternity services at Edinburgh Royal Infirmary after discolouration was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":580005,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[222084,49,48,222080,38572,222077,84,222083,99105,222079,222085,222078,222082,222081],"class_list":["post-580004","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-birthing-pools","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-discolouration","tag-drinking-water","tag-edinburgh-royal-infirmary","tag-health","tag-health-board","tag-hot-water","tag-maternity-services","tag-maternity-unit","tag-neonatal-unit","tag-nhs-lothian","tag-water-issue"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/580004","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=580004"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/580004\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/580005"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=580004"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=580004"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=580004"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}