Described as "crumbling" in a recent official assessment, the clinical services building is at heightened risk of the kind of fault that occurred last Sunday.
Facilities and site development manager Warren Taylor said surgery was up and running within two hours, despite the outage prompting asbestos control measures.
Mr Taylor said the surgical team’s initial response to the steam leak in the sterile storage room was "bang on" in not entering the affected area and calling his team.
Mr Taylor is immediately alerted to any problem involving the hospital ceiling because of the presence of asbestos and the general fragility of the clinical services building.
A fitter repaired the leak. The equipment in the room had to be re-sterilised.
"I wanted to see the site myself and make sure it was OK before it was released."
It was "fantastic to see it works in events like these".
Such events are likely to become more frequent in the next few years.
"There’s multiple things that could happen."
Mr Taylor’s team had become increasingly creative.
"I can’t speak more highly of the guys ... we brainstorm and then link in to the actual clinical teams."
Any proposed fix had to be acceptable to clinical staff.
Some areas housing plant are no-go places because of asbestos, and they were often the older parts more likely to develop problems.
Potential work-around measures include ducting electricity under the ceiling.
"It’s not going to look pretty; it’s still going to meet the requirements."
The work was "extremely challenging" as it was vital not to spend too much money on the building, which will be replaced in a few years’ time.
