Kamloops’s Royal Inland Hospital most overcrowded in B.C.

Royal Inland Hospital in Kamloops is bursting at the seams with more patients than even its spare beds can handle.

“Some hospitals face real and fundamental challenges, most notably Royal Inland Hospital,” Health Minister Adrian Dix said during a news briefing today, Nov. 23. “To put it in context at Royal Inland, it’s the only hospital whose current population is above its base and surge capacity.”

The Kamloops hospital has 252 base beds and 20 surgical beds for a total of 279 beds but has 292 patients, as of Monday.

It also has four COVID outbreaks that have affected 50 people and caused three deaths to date.

READ MORE: 3rd death linked to COVID-19 outbreaks in Kamloops hospital

Dix pointed out that 89 new nursing and health care assistants have been hired since Sept. 13.

Even so, some have been required stay past the end of their schedule shifts in order to have adequate staffing.

READ MORE:Nurse reports understaffing incident and continued burnout at Kamloops hospital

From Nov. 14 to 20, there were 375 non-urgent scheduled surgeries cancelled in B.C. with 159 being in the Interior Health region, most, if not all, at Royal Inland and Kelowna General Hospital.

Another 197 non-urgent surgeries were cancelled in the Fraser Health region due to floods and landslides, Dix said.

Six of nine operating rooms were closed at Royal Inland last week and two at Kelowna General. Dix did not update those numbers today.

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