Some surgeries requiring an overnight stay at Royal Inland Hospital in Kamloops have been postponed.

That’s because of capacity constraints caused by a COVID-19 outbreak in two wards of the hospital.

Interim vice president of pandemic response, Karen Bloemink, didn’t say exactly when that decision was made but says affected patients are already well aware.

“This is important for the community that accesses services at Royal Inland Hospital, because we know that access to surgery is an important need for the community that may be waiting for surgical procedures. So we’re doing our best to maintain surgical access, we’ve just had to change the mix of surgeries that we are doing.”

As of today, the outbreak at RIH is now at 92 cases, which is one more case than yesterday, and it now includes 32 patients and 60 staff members.

Fifty-eight of those cases are still active, and one patient has died as a result of the outbreak.