For the past two months, all surgeries in the Southeast have been performed at the hospital in Ste. Anne.

Lisa Albensi is the Director of Health Services at Bethesda Regional Health Centre in Steinbach, she says there was a problem with the backup power supply. “We had an issue with our transformer which is a major piece of electrical equipment that supplies all of our emergency backup power, so we had to replace it.”

On February 24, 2017, the laparoscopic tower equipment was moved from Bethesda hospital to Ste. Anne Hospital where all surgeries have been performed since that day. Albensi says patients requiring emergency surgery have been transported to Ste. Anne for their procedure.

"If it's a day surgery, they stay in Ste. Anne, but it all depends on how many open beds they have, and how long they need to stay. One or two people are transported every day from Bethesda to Ste. Anne Hospital. After they have surgery in Ste. Anne, they are transported back to Bethesda."

Albensi says Bethesda surgical staff are used to operating out of both hospitals, so it wasn't a major change for them to strictly work out of the Ste. Anne site. She says the major change would be for Ste. Anne staff because they are not used to having to keep as many post-op patients overnight.

"They have been fabulous to work with and they have been able to accommodate when a day patient needs to stay overnight, they have been able to find a bed, so we've been fortunate."

Albensi says it's not really an issue transferring the services over because Ste. Anne has all the supplies in place, and the operating room is clean and ready to be used. "Everybody has worked really well as a team and the Ste. Anne physicians have been phenomenal working with us as well, providing assistance in the operating room."

She adds they are very excited to have a new transformer in place and a new laparoscopic tower since a lot of surgeries are done by scope. The operating room at Bethesda is scheduled to re-open on June 5, 2017.