Hospital authorities who were informed about the situation called a health and safety officer specialised in infection control to assess the matter and instruct the authorities about any measures that could be taken.

In fact, the infection control expert found that the level of contamination of the air inside the operating theatres was too high to risk carrying out the planned surgeries.

As a result, the hospital authorities took the decision to cancel all the scheduled operations in order to prevent any infections following the operations.

The patients were informed about the problem and they have been given another date for their surgery to be carried out. Some of the surgeries were rescheduled for and carried out yesterday while others will be performed in the very near future.

Speaking to The Malta Independent, St Luke’s Hospital superintendent Frank Bartolo explained that the problem was caused by a blockage in the drainage system just outside the operating theatres. The smell was picked by the state-of-the-art air-conditioning units that keep the operating theatres at the correct temperature in order to prevent infections, and the smell ended up inside the theatres.

The three theatres which had the foul smell are those usually used for ear, nose and throat surgeries, as well as ophthalmic, gynaecology and paediatric surgeries.

“As a precautionary measure, we decided to cancel between 20 and 25 operations and patients have been given another date for their surgeries. Experts carried out an air scavenging exercise for the air inside the theatres to be cleared of contamination and the operating theatres were back in operation today (yesterday),” he said.

When asked what would be done in the future to prevent a similar problem at the hospital’s operating theatres, Dr Bartolo said the hospital authorities will be looking into the matter to ensure that this one-off case will not happen again.

Even though most of the patients complained that their surgery was cancelled after they had starved for several hours prior to their operation, they understood that the decision to cancel them was taken for their own safety and in their best interest, he said.

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