Royal Inland Hospital’s frequent overcrowding could be eased if Interior Health returned the top floor to patient wards instead of keeping corporate offices there, a BCNU shop steward said Thursday.

Tracy Quewezance said the latest overcrowding at the hospital has resulted in the postponement of three days of surgical slates and patients to be lined up in the halls.

The problem flared up last week and escalated this week, she said.

“This week is worse than last week. What’s next week going to look like?” said Quewezance, RIH shop steward for the B.C. Nurses Union.

“It’s bad. It’s been bad for a while.”

Hospital administrator Marg Brown told The Daily News Wednesday night the overcrowding is the worst she’s ever seen it. But there was no single source of the problem — there are simply a lot of sick patients and others who are waiting to be placed in other facilities.

Interior Health spokeswoman Tracy Watson said 17 elective surgeries were postponed last week and 17 procedures in ambulatory care. Another three surgeries were put on hold so far this week.

“Any time surgeries are postponed, it’s frustrating for those patients affected, as well as for their physicians and our staff. But it’s a decision we make in the best interest of all, and we did not make it lightly,” she said.

Quewezance said RIH was 37 per cent over capacity Wednesday, or more than 80 patients beyond the 224 beds the hospital offers.

Last week, it was 25 per cent over — amounting to 66 patients.

Patients are in the hallways or in rooms that were closed. Staff are working overtime or being asked to watch over extra patients.

“People are burning out, people are frustrated, this is not the kind of care they want to give,” she said.

“At this point, the only thing we can think of as a solution is we could use the ninth floor as another patient unit. They closed it and changed it into office space. . . . To me, patient care comes first.”

Quewezance said when she’s mentioned that idea, she’s been told there’s no money to do the renovations.

The head of surgery at Royal Inland said he’s been told the same thing.

Dr. Richard Brownlee said the ninth floor has been talked about, but he was told it would take several million dollars to make the change.

And the master site plan that would see a tower added to the RIH campus is at least five years away, he said.

“There’s only one medical ward in the hospital and two-thirds of the people in the hospital are medical patients. So you do need more medical beds,” said Brownlee.

Quewezance said the cost to staff is burnout and frustration.

“People going home in tears. They don’t feel they’ve done a good job. They’re not doing everything they feel they should be doing. It’s a vicious cycle and it’s really sad.”

Brownlee said the cost to patients is they have to wait even longer for surgery. He cancelled two spine operations, which means those patients will have to be rebooked a few months from now.

Some of those patients have taken holiday time and made arrangements for child care or time off work so they can recover, he said.

“Then they suddenly get cancelled and they have to start over.”

And there’s a cost to doctors, too, who have surgeries cancelled and then have to find procedures that don’t require admission, in order to fill in the operating-room time.

“It’s frustrating for the surgeons, because you don’t have any control over it. And it can have a financial impact if you get your OR time cancelled several times,” he said.

He had a case last week that involved some new equipment he wanted to use. One equipment rep flew to Kamloops from Minnesota and another came in from Vancouver to be on hand for the operation.

It didn’t happen.

“Who knows how long it’s going to go on for? It’s terrible right now. And surgical services are always the thing that takes the beating because it’s considered elective.”