Normal operations return to The Ottawa Hospital General Campus after fire

Code Orange lifted at Ottawa Hospital The emergency room at the General campus has reopened, nearly a week after a fire. CTV’s Kimberley Fowler reports.

The Code Orange in place at the General Campus of The Ottawa Hospital has been lifted after a transformer fire closed its emergency department on Oct. 27.

The emergency department is now taking patients and is back to regular operations, the hospital said in a statement.

"In addition to stepping up to respond during the fire and subsequent codes over the weekend, our teams have worked tirelessly this week to restore the hospital to normal operations," said Ottawa Hospital spokesperson Rebecca Abelson.

"This is a true testament to the dedication, composure and resilience of our staff."

Ottawa Hospital president and CEO Cameron Love says staff are doing a few more things Thursday afternoon to fully restore operations.

"All of our ORs are back in operating, we're moving our final units back to their home locations today and we're basically back to full operations," Love told CTV News Ottawa Thursday afternoon.

The Oct. 27 fire plunged several floors into darkness and forced nearly 100 patients, including 17 babies in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU), to be moved out of affected areas.

The hospital implemented a 'Code Orange' and had been asking patients to visit other emergency departments in the city.

Many surgeries, clinics and appointments at the hospital had to be rescheduled and led to longer wait times at other area hospitals.

"The magnitude of it was really shocking," Love said when asked about the situation at Ottawa's largest hospital over the past week.

"Thankfully, a lot of our procedures and our emergency management processes allow us to manage in this type of situation, but it has taken us close to a week to get everything back online."

The hospital confirmed Monday that an unspecified amount of donated blood was lost because the refrigerators storing it lost power.

Ron Vezina, vice-president of the Canadian Blood Services told CTV Morning Live they will require 490 donors in Ottawa to replenish the blood lost.

"Anyone who's ever thought about giving blood, now's the time," he said.

"Our blood supply is much lower than it needs to be."

Canadian Blood Services is calling previous donors directly and are looking for all blood types.

In a statement late Monday afternoon, the hospital said it had lifted its "code grey – power" after normal power was fully restored to the entire General Campus. Large generators were on scene to power the hospital.

The hospital had said they had wanted to return to normal operations by Thursday.

"We would like to thank all of our staff, regional partners and the entire community for their patience throughout this process," Abelson said.

"We are so proud of how our whole community came together to support one another and ensure that everyone continued to access the care they needed."

With files from CTV News Ottawa's Josh Pringle and Ted Raymond