A critical shortage of doctors and nurses in the North Island will result in another emergency-room closure in Port Hardy this weekend and continued understaffing that doctors call unsafe for patients.
Port Hardy Hospital’s emergency department will be closed from 5 a.m. Friday until 7 a.m. Sunday “due to limited staff availability,” according to Island Health.
Ambulances will be diverted to Port McNeill Hospital, about a 30-minute drive, in the latest in a series of temporary weekend shutdowns since the spring.
The crisis and creation of a local task force of health professionals to address it was spelled out in an Aug. 19 memo to the Doctors of B.C. obtained by the Times Colonist last week.
The Mount Waddington region — Alert Bay, Port Alice, Port Hardy and Port McNeill — “has been in an evolving state of crisis since March 2020,” wrote Helen Truran, the Vancouver Island representative for the Rural and Remote Divisions of Family Practice. Truran notes that Port Hardy is down to two physicians as of this month.
“They are very concerned about the level of service they can provide and are seeking organized closures of the emergency [department] with diversions to Port McNeill to ensure patient safety and prevent further physician burn-out,” said Truran.
The memo is based in part on minutes, also obtained by the Times Colonist last week, from an Aug. 17 meeting between Port Hardy physicians and Island Health.
In the minutes, Port Hardy family doctor Shannon Wong tells Island Health officials that ideally, there should be seven doctors for Port Hardy, but only two will be working in the primary care clinic as of September.
