(ASHLEY LEGASSIC - REPORTER / iNFOnews.ca)

Staffing issues and COVID-19 outbreaks persist at Royal Inland Hospital, and Kamloops city council is still waiting on timely, reliable communication from the health authority in charge.

At a meeting on Tuesday, council agreed to send an invitation to Interior Health CEO Susan Brown to give her an opportunity to explain communication and staffing issues the health authority is facing, along with some of possible solutions.

Councillor Mike O'Reilly expressed his frustrations with Interior Health on Nov. 16, saying that funding for capital projects and equipment projects are always approved at the City and the Thompson Nicola Regional District, but the health authority is not meeting its end of the bargain.

"We are delivering on our asks and it feels like Interior Health is not delivering on what they need to be delivering on," he said. "We have a half-a-billion-dollar hospital that's getting close to opening that we're not going to have the staff to open."

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As healthcare staff face ongoing shortages, one nurse recently told iNFOnews.ca that a ratio of one nurse for every 11 patients is common at Royal Inland Hospital.

There are four separate COVID-19 outbreaks in different areas of Royal Inland Hospital, which is one of the two largest hospitals in the health region.

In a statement to iNFOnews.ca, Interior Health said 200 nurses and 41 nursing students have been hired at Royal Inland Hospital since Jan. 1, 2021.

"We continue to work to attract to people to Royal Inland Hospital, and are committed to fill our current vacancies, and recognizing our volumes in Kamloops have increased, Interior Health invested $1 million in additional emergency department staff to support our existing staff members," the statement reads.

Aside from addressing staffing issues, O'Reilly is increasingly frustrated with the lack of transparency from the health authority, and he questioned whether the health authority model directed by the Ministry of Health is working at all.

"The lack of communications from their-so called communications department — it's an embarrassment, quite frankly. We sit for weeks. The members of the community fill in the gaps that Interior Health has chosen not to fill in," O'Reilly said. "As much as we're told to listen to professionals and don't listen to social media, there is no conversation other than what's going on on social media. So they're completely counteracting what's in front of us."

He was joined by fellow councillors Dale Bass and Bill Sarai who voiced their own concerns.

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Sarai, in his continued efforts to see a sobering centre and complex care expanded in the Kamloops area for the street-entrenched population and people with addictions, wants to see Interior Health step up to address those issues directly.

"We're still waiting on a delegation just to give us some answers — some guidance — so we can assure our residents that the problems we're seeing on our streets are being addressed like we keep telling them they are, but they're actually not because they're falling on deaf ears," he said.

Bass agreed with O'Reilly's call for a delegation from Brown, saying residents will continue to use social media because there is not enough communication directly from Interior Health.

"We're going to keep going to social media, and that's not reliable," she said.

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Mayor Ken Christian said he will work with staff to send an invitation to Interior Health CEO Susan Brown asking her to address councillors at the next available council meeting.

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