The theatre department in Caithness General Hospital is to be upgraded next week as part of a £35,000 refurbishment.
Preparations for the essential work will begin on Friday and will take five working days reopening on Monday, July 23.
It will involve the refurbishment of two anaesthetic rooms, and the replacement of corridor flooring and fire doors within the department.
Pam Garbe, CGH general hospital manager, said: “The work will ensure that infection control standards are maintained and it will also improve the environment for patients and staff.
“While disruption to patients will be kept to a minimum, some elective surgery at the hospital will be rescheduled. The eye injection clinic will be temporarily relocated to another area within the hospital and the endoscopy clinic will be unaffected.”
The CGH’s anaesthetic on-call team and surgeon will continue to provide support to the emergency department and a temporary surgical room will be in place to manage any life-threatening emergency situations.
A surgeon will be available in the hospital during this period as usual.
All other patients who require emergency surgery will be stabilised and transferred to Raigmore Hospital in Inverness following consultation with the surgical team.
The essential work comes ahead of the estimated £30m which is hoped to be secured as part of the major service redesign of health and social care services in Caithness which will be subject to public consultation due to get underway in the next few months.
