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Over the next two weeks there are still thousands of shifts that are posted but not claimed at Royal Inland Hospital in Kamloops.

Call-outs were made for 18,747 shifts for all occupations between May 26 and June 25. As of yesterday, June 8, 9,820 were filled and 8,927 have yet to be filled, according to an email from Interior Health to iNFOnews.ca yesterday, June 8..

“Call-outs are made to eligible Interior Health employees in order to find coverage for unfilled shifts,” the email says. “Those are just the unfilled shifts caused by vacancies, illness, vacation, etc.”

Of those call-outs, 10,566 were for nurses. There have been 4,796 filled but the majority, 5,770 are still unfilled.

It’s unclear whether this number of unfilled shifts is normal with two weeks left to go.

“The numbers are a snapshot and quickly changing daily as staff begin to bid on called-out shifts,” the Interior Health email states. “Unfilled shifts currently reflect the ongoing staffing challenges and sick calls we are experiencing.”

Royal Inland Hospital has faced staffing shortages for quite some time. Last month the B.C. Liberals highlighted the problem by providing documentation on some departments running with less than 50% of the required staff on the May long weekend, May 21-23.

READ MORE: Kamloops ER had less than 50% staffing on long weekend: B.C. Liberals

At a news conference on May 26, the Liberals claimed the Emergency Room was running at 40% capacity during the day on Friday, May 20 and at 53% that night.

On May 27, iNFOnews.ca asked Interior Health if that claim was accurate.

Yesterday’s email was the first response from Interior Health.

It says the Emergency Department had eight of 16 nurses working on May 20 along with five health care aids. It does not say how many health care aid positions were posted for that day.

That means the nursing staff was at 50% capacity that day, not the 40% claimed by the Liberals. The Liberals' data does not specify if that 40% is based on all staff or just nurses.

For the night shift, Interior Health said 10 of sixteen nursing shifts were worked, or 62.5% versus the 53% cited by the Liberals.

Two health care aids worked that night but the Interior Health email, again, does not say how many shifts were scheduled.

Whether any remedies are in the works for the ongoing staffing shortages at Royal Inland is not clear.

“While staffing remains challenging, we continue to work on filling all shifts through current permanent and casual staff at Royal Inland Hospital, through agency staff and with staff from other regions who have responded to our Urgent Response Team call out to support RIH,” the email from Interior Health says. “As of June 8, 310 Interior Health staff expressed interest in helping out at RIH. 26 have been redeployed and more than 20 more are going through the process to be redeployed.”

READ MORE: Dangerous staffing crisis at Kamloops hospital years in the making

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