FILE PHOTO - B.C. Health Minister Adrian Dix.

At least two patients at Royal Inland Hospital in Kamloops believe they had more of their legs amputated than they would have if their surgeries weren’t postponed but that's not because of a raft of postponed surgeries plaguing the hospital, B.C.'s Health Minister said.

Royal Inland Hospital has been hit by COVID outbreaks on several wards and the hospital was dealing with staff shortages before the province's vaccine mandate forced others off the job. But amputations are considered urgent surgeries and they remained among priority operations this fall for a number of reasons, Health Minister Adrian Dix told iNFOnews.ca in an interview. The ministry has nothing to do with when and how those surgeries are performed.

“Urgent scheduled surgeries — all of the decisions get made between doctors and patients,” Dix said. “I can’t comment. I don’t know the individual cases. I’ve heard and seen one or two reports in the media. I don’t know them and I can’t comment on them.

“I couldn’t comment to correct the record or not correct the record. People are absolutely allowed to speak about their circumstances. We can’t talk about people’s private health information. What I can tell you is that, during that period that I think people are talking about, we’ve been doing hundreds of surgeries at Royal Inland Hospital. I’m not sure about those circumstances. I’m not disputing people, I’m just saying we’re doing those surgeries.”

Over the past few weeks two people have reported repeated delays in amputation surgeries that resulted in them having a leg amputated below the knee then again above the knee. A third person is waiting for similar surgery. He offered no other explanation for what's happening at the hospital in Kamloops.

READ MORE: Third patient waited too long for an amputation at Royal Inland Hospital

While Dix can’t comment on those specific cases he said that there is no question that Royal Inland Hospital is under tremendous pressure and has been for at least the past six months.

Part of that is due to extraordinary circumstances such as the the discovery of graves near the former Kamloops Indian Residential School in May, the heat dome in June, wildfires in the summer and floods in the fall.

READ MORE: 'Horrified and heartbroken': Communities in mourning after children found buried at former Kamloops residential school

Plus, services in smaller hospitals in the region have shifted to Kamloops in recent years, precipitating the need for a new tower to be built.

Add to that the fact that there have been a number of COVID outbreaks at the hospital that have hit staff hard as well as patients.

It’s the only hospital in B.C. that is consistently over capacity for both its base and surge beds.

On Sunday, there were 298 patients in Royal Inland Hospital and only 279 base plus surge beds.

Critically ill people in the Northern Health region have been shipped to other hospitals in B.C. but that wasn’t deemed necessary at Royal Inland, Dix said.

Nor is it possible to transfer staff from other hospitals to Royal Inland to help out because other hospitals also mostly at capacity.

There are 9,229 base beds in B.C. and 9,335 are occupied today, he said.

The strategy at Royal Inland has been to recruit more staff.

Since Sept. 13 the hospital has recruited 63 new registered nurses, 20 licenced practical nurses and six health care assistants but the hospital still has 180 job postings open and some full-time staff have reduced to casual status, Dix said.

“There is no question, it’s a challenge,” Dix said. “They’ve been unbelievably productive in the last year in dealing with all these issues.”

READ MORE: New technology slowing nurses down at Royal Inland Hospital in Kamloops

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