June 21,2024
FDIHB Message to the Community
Tséhootsooí Medical Center Air-Cooling System Failure
Tséhootsooí Medical Center (TMC) is experiencing a facility-wide air-cooling system failure that occurred Sunday evening, June 16, 2024. With the safety of our patients and staff as our top priority, it was decided to close several services, including outpatient, inpatient and administrative services, June 19-21, 2024.
TheFort Defiance Indian Hospital Board, Inc. (FDIHB) employees who work within theTMC facility, not associated with mission-critical activities were dismissed on administrative leave from June 19-21, 2024. This excludes FDIHB employees who work in offices outside the TMC facility.
Critical services, including the emergency department and pharmacy, continue to operate at regular hours. Therefore, please expect longer wait times at the EmergencyDepartment and the possibility of being transferred to another facility if extensive services are required.
Our facility's cooling system is complex; specialist technicians have been on site since Tuesday afternoon to repair it. Early this morning, one air-cooling unit was restored, and a mobile cooling unit arrived on-site and is currently being brought online. Though significant progress has been made, restoring our system safely to regular, comfortable conditions for patients and employees will take time; this influenced the decision to extend the hospital closure to Friday,June 21. Once the cooling system has been fully repaired and all quality and safety measures for clinical services are met, all services will be restored.
Services are expected to resume on Monday, June 24, 2024, dependent on no complications arising during the weekend. Please visit our website (fdihb.org) and social media platforms for continued updates.
We sincerely apologize for the disruption in the delivery of health care services to our patients and community. Our clinical departments are working to provide rescheduled appointments for patients whose care have been impacted.
TMC would like to thank our community for your understanding, and also would like to thank our employees who have been working around the clock to manage temperatures, modify operations, maintain critical equipment and continue to deliver essential services. We have activated our incident command system (ICS)to manage the situation; this will include a post evaluation and action plan to ensure mechanical events are avoided in the future.