Royal Inland Hospital is facing “fundamental challenges” unlike other hospitals in B.C., according to the province’s health minister.

Adrian Dix says there are 279 beds at Royal Inland, including 259 base beds and 20 surge beds. As of Tuesday afternoon, he says there were 292 patients in the Kamloops hospital, making RIH the only hospital in the province that is over capacity when it comes to base beds.

“In spite of that, since Nov. 1, when we made the difficult decision to reschedule non-urgent surgeries, more than 592 surgical procedures have been completed at Royal Inland, including 420 scheduled emergent or urgent procedures, and 172 urgent and unscheduled procedures,” Dix said Tuesday.

According to Interior Health, since that time, there were approximately 243 procedures that will need to be rescheduled.

The hospital has had four COVID-19 outbreaks this month, affecting 57 people and killing three patients. One of those four outbreaks was declared over today, while three others remain ongoing at this time.

Further, non-essential visitors are not allowed into the hospital, where there are fewer than half of the nine operating rooms open for urgent surgeries.

“Some hospitals have faced real and fundamental challenges, most notably Royal Inland Hospital. I want to thank all the staff and teams at that hospital, and for their continued work,” Dix added.

He says 89 staff have been hired at Royal Inland since September, but he did not say how many other workers have left their jobs since then.

NL News has asked the Ministry of Health for that information.