Surgeries postponed due to COVID-19 outbreak at Kamloops’s Royal Inland Hospital

Some elective surgeries have been postponed at Royal Inland Hospital in Kamloops as 92 people at the health care facility have tested positive for COVID-19.

The outbreak has been confined to units 6 North and 6 South, Interior Health officials said during a news briefing today, Feb. 4.

Karen Bloemink, interim vice-president for pandemic response for Interior Health said that 6 South is a surgical unit. Some inpatient elective surgeries have been postponed but others that were urgent have gone ahead. Patients getting inpatient surgery would have to stay overnight in hospital.

“We have had to postpone some individuals and have filled our space in the operating rooms with ones that do not require inpatient stays,” she said.

There has been extensive testing in other wards of the hospital and, so far, it does not seem to have spread, Bloemink said.

Of the 92 current cases, up one since yesterday,60 staff members and 32 patients have been infected. One person had died. There are 58 active cases.

There have been 25 people, including 17 residents, who have tested positive at Brocklehurst Gemstone long-term care home in Kamloops with two deaths at that facility. Only three cases are still active.

Also in Kamloops, there are 21 positive cases of COVID-19 at the Westsyde care home with 10 of them being residents. All cases are still active.

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