Three operating theatres at the public Calvary hospital will reopen on Friday morning after a fire forced their closure, meaning the hospital will be able to perform emergency surgeries and allow for childbirth.
However, it will take between four and six weeks to reopen an extra theatre and the Bruce hospital's surgical store, and the remaining operating theatres are expected to be closed until April.
Calvary ACT regional chief executive Ross Hawkins said the hospital was waiting on specialist reports to clear the remaining theatres for renovation and reopening.
An electrical fire in the roof cavity of an operating theatre in the Xavier Building on December 6 last year, forced the hospital to suspend surgeries and bypass maternity services to the Centenery Hospital for Women and Children in Woden.
Mr Hawkins said the cause of the fire was still under investigation.
"The information that we have at the moment from Fire and Rescue was that it was an electrical fault in a piece of equipment. We're getting that obviously forensically investigated because we want to be absolutely sure what caused it and how that happened," Mr Hawkins told ABC radio on Thursday.
"Unfortunately, we've been a bit curtailed due to the Christmas period, getting the right experts to look at. But that's in with some engineering experts now."
An update published on the Calvary hospital's website on December 29 said: "Following the fire at Calvary Public Hospital on 6 December 2022, the theatre complex remains closed until further notice." The update remains on the website.
The Canberra Times on Wednesday sought an interview with Mr Hawkins on the reopening of the operating theatres from Calvary.
Mr Hawkins said Calvary would be in touch with women due to give birth over the next two weeks, and inductions would recommence at Bruce from Friday afternoon.
"Those [who] are already booked in for C-sections in John James [hospital in Deakin], those will still continue," he said in the radio interview.
"For those women who are looking to birth from tomorrow that can come to Calvary Bruce or are due to be scheduled in Calvary Bruce, we'll be speaking with them to get them booked in and start to work through the process."
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