The largest city in northeastern B.C. has been operating without an emergency room for multiple days in a row as the region grapples with a shortage of health-care professionals.
On Wednesday, the Northern Health Authority announced the ER at the Fort St. John hospital — which serves an immediate population of 28,000 people, and hundreds more from outlying communities — would be closed from 4 p.m. MST July 17 through to 10 a.m. MST on July 18.
It is the fifth closure the ER has had in the past week, with previous shutdowns July 12-14 and on July 16, each beginning in the afternoon or evening and lasting until the next day.
The frequent closures have sparked worry in the community, as well as a push for an independent review of how the hospital is being managed.
“Our lives are at stake,” said resident Tyler Holte in an interview with CBC News. “We are losing our life-saving critical service to our community.”
In every instance, the health authority blamed “physician coverage challenges” and directed people in need of emergency care to call 911 to be taken to the nearest hospital.
But Holte and others point out that Fort St. John, an industrial hub nearly 800 kilometres northeast of Vancouver, is the largest city in the region.
The next-closest hospitals are roughly 100 kilometres away by road in Chetwynd and Dawson Creek, where ERs have also been closed in recent weeks.
And that raised another question for Holte: “Are you going to be able to survive the trip?”
Holte has started a petition calling for an independent review of the closures in Fort St. John, arguing many in the community have lost confidence in current leadership’s ability to manage the situation.
In just over two weeks, he has received more than 2,000 signatures for his online petition supporting the independent review, which works out to nearly 10 per cent of the population of Fort St. John.
He says the support on the petition speaks to the extent people in the community are concerned about the health-care system.
“I think people have a lot of anxiety, and I think it’s a deterrent to anyone looking to move to our community,” he said.
ER closures throughout province
However, northeastern B.C. is not the only region of B.C. facing regular ER closures: the mayor of Merritt, near Kamloops, recently billed the province for continued diversions at the hospital in his city while also pointing to diversions in the nearby communities of Williams Lake, Lillooet and Oliver in the same timeframe.
In an interview on CBC’s Daybreak North, Health Minister Adrian Dix said his ministry has been working to recruit additional staff to hospitals throughout the province, and had managed to fill 1,136 emergency room shifts across B.C. in the past three months through locum and incentive programs.
Daybreak North13:33B.C. health minister responds to ER diversions
Adrian Dix says the province is working on solutions for now and into the future.
Dix also responded to criticisms that notices of closures are coming just hours in advance, sometimes not even being communicated on official channels so residents only find out by a note on the door of an emergency room when they arrive after hours.
He said the reason closures aren’t announced further in advance is that health authorities are seeking ways to keep ERs open up until the very last minute — while also saying he would review specific instances where closures were not communicated at all.
Longer-term, he said, the province is increasing the number of health-care workers trained in B.C. and stepping up international recruitment efforts by offering greater financial incentives.
But, he also pointed to the scale of the problem, stating that there are health-care worker shortages across Canada and other parts of the world.
Holte, facing another night without an ER in his community, understood Fort St. John is not alone in facing doctor shortages but still believed there would be value in reviewing how the local hospital is being run to see if improvements can be made on the ground.
“Yes, there are pressures and challenges but it doesn’t really answer the question of whether they’re doing anything wrong internally,” he said.
“At the very least our community deserves some credible and fulsome answers that I think only an independent investigation can provide.”