Interior Health has declared one of four COVID-19 outbreaks over at Royal Inland Hospital.
The outbreak that has ended is in Unit 7 North, a cardiac and renal unit of the hospital. There were six cases connected – five patients and one staff member – with patient dying as a result.
The outbreak was declared on Nov. 8, though it is unclear how the virus got into the unit as it was not a designated COVID-19 ward during the pandemic.
Meanwhile, COVID-19 outbreaks remain active at RIH in Unit 5 South (declared on Nov. 2), Unit 6 South (declared Nov. 10), and Unit 5 North (declared Nov. 12).
Unit 5S has seen 29 total cases – 21 patients and eight staff – along with two patient deaths. In Unit 6S, there have been 10 patient cases while Unit 7N reported one new staff case Tuesday, taking the total to 12 cases – six patients and six staff.
Between the four outbreaks, there have been 57 cases and three deaths. According to the most recently available date from Interior Health, 47 of the positive cases were among people fully vaccinated, meaning four were partially immunized while five were unvaccinated.
IH couldn’t share the vaccination status of the three patients who died.
The ongoing outbreaks have led to significant temporary changes in RIH this month. Only essential visitors are being allowed into the hospital, including the emergency room. An undisclosed number of elective surgeries have been cancelled, while two-thirds of operating rooms in the hospital are reportedly closed.
Kamloops Councillor raises concerns about RIH
Concerns about the state of RIH came to a head last week when Kamloops city councillors voted to request IH to make its CEO, Susan Brown, available for a delegation at council to address concerns about healthcare that have long been raised in the community.
Coun. Mike O’Reilly said last week the publicly-funded health authority isn’t living up to the obligations it has to the people of Kamloops.
“The lack of communications from their so-called communications department, it’s an embarrassment, quite frankly. We sit for weeks, the members of the community fill in the gaps that IHA has chosen not to fill in. That’s spreading miscommunication amongst our city, amongst our neighbour, amongst our friends,” O’Reilly said at council.
“It’s becoming pretty clear that the health authority model isn’t working. And as much as that’s up to Honorable (Health Minister Adrian Dix) to manage, what we have to manage is what’s in front of us today, and that’s Interior Health. And I think we need to ask Susan Brown to come and present to council, about what her vision is to get us out of this situation that we’re in.”
O’Reilly also voiced concern that while the new $417-million patient care tower, is months away from completion, there are concerns that IH won’t be able to fully staff the facility when it does open next year.
That is as concerns have long been raised about a lack of staff at existing departments of RIH.
