Family moved to Kelowna hospital after RIH closes pediatrics ward due to staffing issues

A Kamloops woman whose newborn was admitted to Royal Inland Hospital says her baby had to be transferred to a Kelowna hospital over the weekend after the pediatrics ward at RIH was shuttered due to staffing issues.

Arian Macaulay told Castanet Kamloops her two-and-a-half-week-old son contracted RSV — a respiratory virus — and needed oxygen, so he was admitted to RIH's pediatrics ward on Tuesday.

However, she said her doctor came in at about 7 p.m. on Saturday to tell her they would need to be moved.

“She let us know that as of 7:30 last night [Saturday], at shift change, there was going to be no nurses in the whole ward until Monday and they needed to transfer us,” Macaulay said.

“Of course, we just thought we were going to be moved into another room in the hospital. But then she let us know that they had nowhere to put us, so they had to transfer us out to Kelowna.”

Macaulay said she was surprised to hear the news, especially because her son doesn’t have a high-risk condition.

“He's on a very low amount of oxygen, he just needs some medical assistance. And so to be moved that far was pretty surprising,” she said.

Macaulay said she was taken along with her son by ambulance to Merritt, where they were transferred into another ambulance to be taken to Kelowna General Hospital. Her partner, Hardy Mussfeld, followed along in their car.

She said she feels fortunate they were able to bring their vehicle, noting not everyone in that situation would have the supports to ensure a ride home.

“If a single mom was going through this, that would be pretty tough,” Macaulay said.

Macaulay said she had seen stories circulate about RIH being short-staffed, but when her son was born — and for some of her five-day stay — she hadn’t personally felt the impact of the staffing issues.

“We had amazing care, the nurses and doctors were great. Everything was awesome. And we were fortunate enough to not have felt that,” she said.

“We wondered on Friday night if it was going to be different on the weekend, and we had a feeling that we were going to notice a bit of a shift. In the morning it seemed a little quieter in there, but we still had care throughout the day and then all of a sudden — boom — last night. We really felt that impact.”

Interior Health confirmed in an email to Castanet that Unit 3 West temporarily closed on the weekend “after receiving a number of late afternoon sick calls.”

“Patients were transferred to other units to maintain their continuity of care,” the health authority said, adding more details about the situation would be provided on Monday.

Macaulay said she was told some people would be moved into other rooms, and some would have to go to other hospitals.

Interior Health hasn’t yet confirmed how many patients were impacted by the ward closing, or whether any other patients had to be transferred to outside hospitals.

Macaulay said this is a worrisome sign for the future of RIH, especially because the Kamloops hospital provides care to residents from many surrounding rural areas as well as the city itself.

"To see it struggling this bad just makes you wonder how much worse can it get,” Macaulay said, adding Merritt and Clearwater have had to close their emergency rooms due to staffing issues.

“If Kamloops can't keep up with that, then where do we go from here, as well as opening this whole new wing? It opens next month I believe, and how are they going to even keep this new wing open if they don't have the staff for it?”

Mussfeld said talking with some of the nurses at RIH about their working conditions was “quite alarming.”

According to Mussfeld, their pediatrician had been at the hospital for about six to eight hours, and said she had another 22 hours of work to go.

“I'm a supervisor in the construction industry, and we have to give our workers a minimum number of hours of R&R time in between shifts because it's been proven that they become mentally impaired — like equivalent to intoxicated from alcohol — if they don't get enough rest,” Mussfeld said.

“It's just unbelievable that our government is working these people to the bone.”

He said although government officials have blamed COVID-19, nurses he spoke with said the short-staffing issues have been “years in the making,” something that nurses have also told Castanet Kamloops.

Mussfeld said it’s concerning that although the province’s population is growing, medical services don’t seem to be keeping up with that growth as many people — including himself — don’t have a family doctor in the community where they live.

Last week, Kamloops Mayor Ken Christian, Coun. Dale Bass and local MLA Todd Stone raised concerns about healthcare workers under strain at RIH.

In response to Stone’s comments in the B.C. Legislature, Health Minister Adrian Dix said “no group of healthcare workers has done as much and under more difficult circumstances than the health care workers in Kamloops.”

He said the health authority continues to hire more nurses, and has added places for nurses and nurse practitioners at Thompson Rivers University.

“We are adding staff and adding supports all the time and we’re going to continue to do that,” Dix said.