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The Canberra Hospital is searching for dozens of former infant patients who may have been infected with potentially deadly disease through inadequate sterilisation of equipment.
ACT Health says it has concerns that 97 babies may have been infected with Hepatitis B, Hepatitis C or HIV when they had a biopsy of the colon between February 1987 and mid-October last year.
About half have already been contacted and given blood tests but the results of the tests are not yet known.
The hospital is now trying to contact all of the others and their parents so they too can have tests to check if they have been infected.
Acting Chief Health Officer Dr Charles Guest says the chances of infection are slim, but the patients must be tested.
"The risks of disease transmission in this instance are remote, but it was important that the patients and their parents were informed that this breach had occurred and that their minds really be set at rest by offering them this testing," he said.
The problem was first noted in October last year when a staff member noticed the biopsy forceps had not been sterilised properly.
"These instruments have usually been cleaned with what's called an enzymatic cleaner and so they've looked clean all these years but on this one occasion late last year it was found that they looked dirty," Dr Guest told ABC Radio today.
He said about half of the patients had already been contacted and the results from their tests should be back in a matter of hours or days.
"We're very aware that this process is likely to raise anxiety, we're very sorry for that, but we consider it a necessary step to ensure that people know what risks have occurred or haven't occurred."
Dr Guest said the patients and their parents had not been notified sooner as it was not considered a matter of emergency public safety.
ACT Health Minister Katy Gallagher said that was a wise decision as it was important to understand all the facts before the patients were notified.
"These are very sensitive issues - it would be much worse if we got only a handful of people that we knew about and rang them with only half of the information," the minister told ABC radio.
Ms Gallagher commended the hospital for informing the patients at all.
"I think it would've been must more distressing for the hospital to have found out and done nothing because the risk is so low and then have people find out perhaps down the track."
- AAP
