Another hospital employee has hit out at the bad state of affairs of Bermuda's only general hospital.

The operating room (OR) nurse, who preferred not to be named, said that there were flies in the OR and cockroaches and termites in storage cabinets.

The nurse was responding to an article in yesterday's Royal Gazette where a doctor had claimed that the lack of water was only the tip of the iceberg in things wrong with the hospital.

The nurse said that fruit flies were often seen flying around the OR and she agreed with everything the doctor had claimed in the article.

The doctor had claimed that there were ants in both the induction and operating rooms; as well as broken stretchers used to carry patients to the OR; that the air conditioning was faulty and that it sucked in exhaust fumes from trucks; and a lack of supplies like oxygen masks.

Although chairman of the Bermuda Hospitals Board (BHB) Jonathan Brewin denied all claims, except the fact that ants can be found in the induction rooms.

“There are always flies in the OR and roaches and termites in the storage areas,” said the source. “I do not know where the fruit flies come from, all I know is that they are there.”

However BHB chief operating officer of clinical programmes, Kathy Ann Lewis, claimed that there were no fruit flies in the OR.

“We do have a staff lounge in the operating suite and if employees bring fruit in, there is always the risk of attracting fruit flies, which any organisation's lunchroom has to deal with,” said Ms Lewis. “However, we are not aware of any fruit flies in the actual operating rooms. At no time is high quality patient care compromised.”

“Occasionally we may have some cockroaches in our storage rooms, but as most people know, this is a Bermuda challenge, not only for the Bermuda Hospitals Board.

“However, we will be assessing the door on our storage room to see how we can manage this concern.”

The nurse claimed that temperatures were really high in the OR and that they had seen temperatures soar to 83 degrees Fahrenheit.

“It is ludicrous for them to say that they are dealing with the air conditioning problem - this happens every summer,” said the nurse. “It is very hot and we do have to wipe the sweat off the surgeons heads. “We took a thermometer around and saw temperatures soaring to 83 degrees and on that day the humidity was between 60 and 70 percent.”

Ms Lewis admitted the hospital has received complaints about the room's temperature from staff but said it was not an everyday occurrence.

“This is not an everyday problem, for example, over the last 24 hours, the temperature in theatre five was monitored every half hour and fluctuated between 68.6 degrees F and 71.0 degrees F,” said Ms Lewis denying the claim.

“Each of our five operating rooms have individual temperature controls, which can be adjusted.”