Sterilization equipment donated to GMH

by Nick Delgado

Guam - Patients can expect a much shorter wait time for the operating room at the Guam Memorial Hospital. The GMH Volunteers Association donated a Sterrad NX system today to enhance sterilization of medical instruments and equipment in the OR. The system costs more than $70,000, and the funds were raised during the Association's Charity Ball held back in April.

OR unit supervisor Lester Whitley said, "We do EGDs and we do colonoscopies and that's a lot of the business we do for the hospital so what it does it normally takes 45 to 50 minutes to process one scope and this cuts it down into half to 24 minutes so now we can scheduled cases closer and get a lot more patients through for those types of procedures."

He adds the new system will be installed in the next month, and Johnson & Johnson Bio-Med personnel will be coming on island to help train GMH on how to use the equipment.