B.C.’s Health Minister is acknowledging that there are challenges in the emergency room in Kamloops, but it is unclear if that will lead to more support for frontline staff.
Early Wednesday morning, a 70-year-old Kamloops woman passed away in the waiting room at Royal Inland Hospital while waiting for care.
Many patients have reported waiting between four and six hours, sometimes significantly longer, as staff and patients say the emergency room is severely under-resourced.
Adrian Dix was asked if there will be immediate action to allocate resources to RIH.
“We’ve invested $1 million this year to increase staffing levels at Royal Inland Hospital and to address what’s a continuing challenge in the emergency room there,” Dix said. “We’ve added resources. Kamloops has been a priority over the last number of years, and it continues to be a priority.”
He was asked two more times whether there would be immediate action to address the ER challenges but he did not make any firm commitments.
“We’re doing what we’ve done, significantly all over the province. The purpose, in some places, in delaying non-urgent surgeries to address some of these issues,” Dix said. “But I think the message one needs to give to everybody, in this COVID-19 pandemic, is the message to get vaccinated.”
Dix says COVID hospitalizations are drawing an “enormous” amount of resources taking away care to other patients. Across B.C., Dix said there are 111 unvaccinated COVID patients in intensive care units, out of 130 total as of the latest update.
Between Aug. 6 and Sept. 10 (tomorrow), officials say about 321 surgeries will have been postponed at RIH, while about 1,060 surgeries were done between Aug. 6 and Sept. 8.
Asked about the 70-year-old woman who died waiting for care at RIH, Dix said he wasn’t able to talk about specific cases because of privacy concerns.
“In the case of that death, the circumstances as they would be in all such cases, are going to be reviewed. And everyone I think understands the grief of the family involved and so we are going to be looking at that and reviewing that,” he said.
“The issue will be fully reviewed both by Interior Health and potentially through the Patient Quality Review Board, so independently, to get a full view of that so to comment on that in advance of that isn’t the right thing, nor is it in terms of privacy.
On Wednesday, Interior Health also told NL News it is reviewing the situation to determine what took place. In a written statement, they said the priority is to ensure that ER patients are triaged and seen in a timely fashion.
– With files from Interior Health
