Two towns in B.C. on opposite ends of the province are dealing with temporary closures of their emergency rooms this weekend.
The ER at the South Okanagan General Hospital in Oliver closed at 5 p.m. Friday, with plans to reopen at 7 p.m. Saturday. People in that area needing emergency care will have to go to Penticton, 40 kilometres away.
The hospital in Mackenzie saw its ER close at 3 p.m. Friday, and it will not reopen until 7 p.m. Saturday.
Anyone needing emergency care in that community will need to travel two and a half hours south to Prince George.
As well, Chetwynd Hospital’s ER will be closing Saturday evening at 5 p.m. until 7 a.m. Sunday. Patients can go to Dawson Creek Hospital’s ER, about 100 km away.
Oliver Mayor Martin Johansen tells 1130 NewsRadio that this is the longest closure his town’s hospital has seen in a while.
“[We’ve had] lots of eight to 12 hour closures, but this is going a bit above and beyond, and of course it increases the opportunity for tragic outcomes for residents in the South Okanagan when they can’t access the hospital when they need to,” he said.
Only having an ER that is accessible by a long drive brings a whole host of other issues, he says.
“When people are unable to travel, or even when you can get an ambulance up to Penticton, you’ve still got to find your own way home a lot of times,” Johansen said.
“Lots of people don’t have the ability to drive, depending on the emergency, or have somebody drive them, they don’t have access to transportation, and there’s no bus service, regular bus service, and those types of things. So it becomes very, very challenging. Even though it’s half an hour away, it’s still half an hour away.”
He estimates Oliver’s hospital has had around 20 ER closures so far this year, with an uptick in the summer.
Johansen says he has been having ongoing discussions with Health Minister Adrian Dix and the local MLA and says everyone is aware of the problem.
“But as you might be aware, well, this is not unique to Oliver. This has been going on throughout the interior,” he said.
“For us, we haven’t had a closure due to a nurse shortage, but I know that we’ve been very, very close. They’ve been all related to physician coverage, which just speaks to how thin we are. When somebody goes on a holiday, somebody maybe gets sick, there just isn’t people to cover.”
He adds hospitals in remote rural communities have an extra challenge.
“A lot of your coverage to keep your hospitals open has to come from outside your community,” Johansen said.
“So there’s just less people to come and help you keep open when they’re taking time off for personal reasons, everybody needs to recharge, or you just get burnt out.”
Johansen says he’s working with the provincial government and local First Nations communities to bring support in from outside the community.
“We really need to find a way to make it easier for them to come and do that,” he said. “And one of the things that we’re working together on is housing for healthcare workers. So that’s a project I’m pushing.”
There have been several other ER closures around the province this summer. Merritt’s Nicola Valley Hospital has seen multiple closures due to limited doctor availability, and Lillooet has had similar issues. These two communities had their ER patients diverted to hospitals 100-200 km away.
Earlier this week, BC Conservative MLA Elenore Sturko spoke out after the ER at Peace Arch Hospital narrowly missed being shut down Aug. 2.
She said the problem starts right at the top with the ministry and how “our healthcare system is currently being run.”
“It’s time for change so that we can finally give some respite to healthcare workers who are being stretched beyond their limits,” she said.
Sturko says there is a problem of “denial” and lack of effort into restructuring and transforming the healthcare system.
With files from Aashta Pandey-Kanaan and Raynaldo Suarez.