More emergency room closures hit parts of B.C. over the weekend due to staffing shortages. Andrea Macpherson has the details on which ones have reopened and which are still closed.
Another round of emergency room closures hit the province this weekend.
Staffing shortages forced ERs in Dawson Creek and Hazelton to close on Sunday night and will reopen later Monday morning.
The Lillooet Hospital’s ER is currently in the middle of a 48-hour closure that ends on Tuesday at 8 a.m.
The ER at the Lake District Hospital in Burns Lake closed Monday at 8 a.m. and will reopen at 8 a.m. on Tuesday.
Between Friday night and Sunday evening, ERs were also closed in Mission, Oliver, Merritt, Kitimat and Mackenzie due to staffing shortages.
All of them have now reopened.
“We look at a situation now where emergency care for many people is your neighbour who has a first aid kit and a vehicle and that’s not an acceptable situation,” Paul Adams with the B.C. Rural Health Network said.
- Another emergency room closed in B.C. due to lack of staffing
- Scrambling for staff at Peace Arch Hospital
- More communities dealing with ER closures
- ER closures in Williams Lake prompt calls for internal audit
- Staff shortages cause B.C. rural ER closures
- ER closures in Interior Health region
Meanwhile, the mayor of one community on Haida Gwaii says the Northern Health Authority’s funding should be questioned due to multiple ER closures.
In February 2023, Masset residents held a protest when they learned the northern Haida Gwaii Hospital could face ER closures.
So far this year, the hospital’s ER has seen more than three dozen service interruptions with the most recent one happening on Aug. 8.
Masset Mayor Sheri Disney says if Northern Health cannot provide its services then maybe the funding it gets should go to independent health-care providers instead.
“If Northern Health is saying we can’t run these services in your area, then I’m thinking other organizations might be able to,” she said, “and health-care services that are designated for our area might be better serving our community through other community programs.”
