International Science and Technology Journal

The study aims to isolate and diagnose the bacterial species contaminating the surgical theater at Sabratha Teaching Hospital. Also to identify the most common bacterial species within the surgical theater in the hospital. This study was conducted in the period from June 2021 to January 2022, where 110 collected and incubated samples from the surgical theater (washing basins, water faucets, medical staff’s hands, hall walls, lighting lamps, door handles, the equipment cart and operating tables) in order to isolate and diagnose the bacterial species present inside them, the results revealed that, the highest growth rate of samples was 25.45% for Staph. aureus, whereas the lowest growth rate was 8.20%, for the Klebsiella pneumonia. It was found that Staph. aureus had the highest growth rate on the operating table and the lighting lamp at a rate of 21.4% each, while E.coli bacteria recorded the highest growth on the hands of the medical staff at a rate of 23.53%. Pseudomonas bacteria had the highest growth rate in samples collected from the operating table, at a rate of 25%. The lowest growth rate was recorded in samples collected from door handles, at a rate of 5%. As for Klebsiella pneumonia, the highest growth rate was recorded in samples collected from water, the hands of medical staff, and a lighting lamp, at a rate of 22.22%. As for the samples collected from Strep. epidermids, the highest growth rate was 21.43% for the bacteria collected from the equipment cart and the operating table. The lowest growth rate was 7.14%, collected from the operating walls, the lighting lamp, the washing basin, and the door handles. From the results, the non- growth samples, which were 22 samples, had the highest percentage in water (27.27%), and the lowest growth percentage was in the samples collected from the equipment cart and the operating table, which was 4.54%. The results showed that the samples taken from the surgical operating rooms are contaminated with different types of disease-causing bacteria in different proportions depending on the place from which they were taken, especially the hands of the medical staff, door handles, the equipment cart and operating tables. Therefore, we recommend committing to complete sterilization of the surgical operating rooms before Admitting patients to avoid bacterial infection. Keywords: surgical operating rooms, isolation and diagnosis of bacterial species, bacterial contamination