FILE PHOTO - B.C. Health Minister Adrian Dix.
Image Credit: SUBMITTED / Province of B.C.
November 16, 2021 - 3:02 PM
Outbreaks of COVID-19 in Royal Inland Hospital in Kamloops has forced the closure of six operating rooms.
Three operating rooms remain open for emergency surgeries.
In the Interior Health region, 81 elective non-urgent surgeries were postponed during the week of Nov 7 to 13. That’s almost half of the 174 surgeries postponed in B.C. that week.
Two operating rooms were closed in Kelowna General Hospital earlier this month and those remain closed so the 81 cancelled surgeries are pretty much all at these two hospitals, Health Minister Adrian Dix said at a news briefing today, Nov. 16.
READ MORE: COVID-19 hammering B.C. Interior’s two biggest hospitals: health officials
“We intend to get surgeries back up and running as soon as possible,” he said.
Case counts have come down in the Interior Health region but hospitalizations remain high, Dix said.
Kelowna General Hospital is at 110% of its base bed capacity and Royal Inland is at 110% of its surge capacity.
Part of the reason these hospitals have been stressed is because the Interior Health region has a vaccination rate that’s below the provincial vaccination rate of 86.8% who are fully vaccinated. Health-care workers also lag their counterparts and must be vaccinated in order to work.
Out of 2,885 of health-care workers who still have not been vaccinated, 911 are in the Interior Health region compared to about 1,300 a couple of weeks ago, Dix said. That’s four per cent of the workers in the region. On Nov. 1, 5% were unvaccinated.
The Northern Health region also has a 4% rate of unvaccinated health care workers while the rest of province is at one to 2% level.
Provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry said at the same news briefing the province has received 5,000 Johnson & Johnson vaccine doses that are going to health-care workers who are currently on unpaid leave for not being vaccinated. Some have said that’s the only vaccine they will take.
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