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A rat
A rat. Photograph: Alamy
A rat. Photograph: Alamy

Rat found in hospital operating theatre

This article is more than 11 years old
About 40 operations rescheduled after discovery in decommissioned operating theatre at King's Mill in Mansfield

Dozens of surgical procedures had to be postponed after a rat was found in a hospital operating theatre.

King's Mill hospital in Mansfield, Nottinghamshire, said it took immediate action after the rodent was discovered in a decommissioned operating theatre in the early hours of Monday last week. About 40 operations were rescheduled while the theatre area was cleansed and pest controllers were called in.

Karen Tomlinson, director of operations at the hospital, said: "We were extremely shocked to learn that there was evidence of a rodent having entered a decommissioned operating theatre during the night, at a time when the department was not in use. As soon as we became aware of this fact the following morning, we immediately took steps to thoroughly clean and sterilise the entire theatre area and called in external pest control experts to completely eradicate the problem.

"While this work was under way, all surgical procedures were halted for one day and just over 40 patients had their operations rearranged. We have apologised to any patients affected for the inconvenience caused. I would like to reassure any concerned patient or relative that this was a minor, one-off incident that occurred over a week ago. We took immediate and comprehensive action to rectify matters and to restore services with the minimum of disruption. We are fully operational again. There is no cause for concern."

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