Dr. Sean Gorman (Image Credit: CFJC Today)

By Aaron Schulze

RIH Surgeries

Health Minister’s comments on backlog of surgeries being wiped are ‘misleading’: RIH surgeon

May 6, 2022 | 11:33 AM

KAMLOOPS — A general surgeon at Royal Inland Hospital (RIH) says Health Minister Adrian Dix’s comments regarding the backlog of surgeries from the COVID-19 and weather events being wiped are misleading.

Going through RIH’s numbers, Dr. Sean Gorman says they’re down about 1,000 surgeries compared to their pre-pandemic volume, and about 700 from the last fiscal year, but the types of surgeries are different.

“The kinds of cases that have been done are short snappers, as opposed to things that are complicated, like having a joint replaced or having your abdominal wall reconstructed,” Gorman says. “Anybody that needed to stay in hospital for more than a few minutes to a couple hours after their operation weren’t being offered operations. That amounts to a huge volume of patients.”

According to Gorman, emergency room cases are down from 3,543 in 2018-19 to 3,136 in 2021-22, due to fewer people travelling during the pandemic. Additionally, RIH is down from 6,416 cases in 2018-19 to 5,183 in 2021-22. However, cases in the Kamloops Surgical Centre is up from 2,821 in 2018-19 to 3,272 in 2021-22.

Gorman says RIH is under more pressure than an average hospital of its size in the province. He adds Dix needs to “walk a tight line” around confidence in RIH from the community.

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“People do need to be confident enough to come to the hospital if they’ve got trouble. The minister and the organization are probably doing what they can to make things better, and I think there’s some effort that’s come out of the awareness of the kind of trouble that we’re under. But at the same time, the message the minister made – whether that was intentional or not – is highly misleading,” he says.

A bright spot for RIH in addressing the surgery cases is the new Phil & Jennie Gaglardi Tower. Gorman says the new operating rooms will provide an inspiring environment for their staff, allow RIH to operate at increased capacity, and help with recruitment.

However, he noted the operational dollars to accomplish those surgeries is one thing, but having the physical bodies is a challenge.

“There’s no way we could run 12 operating rooms with the staff we’ve got now,” Gorman says. “We’ve got a few learners coming through and I don’t doubt there’s a commitment to do as much as possible, but I don’t believe that we could go from running seven theatres to running 11 or 12 over the course of a two- or three-week timeframe when the tower opens; it’s not realistic. We’re typically running eight to nine.”

Interior Health is working on opening the new tower for July 18.

with files from Chad Klassen/CFJC Today