Goetz, among mayors wants answers to hospital closures

Over the past week, hospital in Merritt, Clearwater,  Lillooet and Williams Lake have all experienced temporary emergency department closures.

The overnight service interruptions are not a new occurence for these rural ERs, but the frequency and timing of closures this week have community leaders concerned for the health and safety of residents. They want to know how Interior Health and BC’s Ministry of Health plan to address the staffing shortages, and what has caused the latest swell of temporary closures.

“My community deserves much better health care. No different than Kamloops, Kelowna, Vancouver,” said Williams Lake Mayor Surinderpal Rathor.

The mayor says the emergency department at Cariboo Memorial Hospital has dealt with service interruptions in the past, but four consecutive overnight closures was unacceptable. Rathor feels communication between the city and Interior Health officials is good, so he’s confident IH is aware of the city’s concerns.

“As you know, Williams Lake is not just serving the Williams Lake area only. This hospital is serving the whole region,” he reiterates. “It’s a regional hospital.”

Elsewhere, the Nicola Valley Hospital in Merritt has also experienced a recent 48-hour period without ER service.

“Right now, we’re at 23 closures in 19 months, so the numbers continue on,” said the city’s mayor, Michael Goetz. “Right now in B.C., we’ve had 12 closures of hospitals in 10 days.”

Merritt, alongside Oliver and Salmon Arm, was recently chosen to split a recurring $7.5 million investment from the province to help stabilize physician emergency room coverage. And now, Goetz wonders if something went wrong.

“Since that fund has been given to us, we’ve had three shutdowns because we don’t have the doctors,” he notes, “so either that (was an) announcement with no backing or the plan hasn’t worked. We’re not really sure what has happened because the whole idea of the announcement of that fund was to take care of this exact situation.”

With an outdoor music festival and other events taking place in the Nicola Valley this weekend, Goetz says Merritt will need its emergency department.

“When you’ve got… [Nicola Valley Hospital] down, Clearwater is down, Williams Lake is down, all in the same day, those ambulances now are everywhere, and they’re no longer in your community. And that’s a concern.”

When asked whether Merritt is expecting another shutdown this weekend, the vice president of clinical operations for IH North, Diane Shendruk, says as of Tuesday (July 9), Merritt should see no service impacts over the weekend.

Low staffing on shifts is often behind the closures, but according to Shendruk, the problem goes deeper, with unfilled job openings around the Interior.

“We continue to have vacancy rates that we actively are recruiting to, and our priority is to maintain full service at all times,” she adds.

Some progress has been made with rural recruitment. Shendruk points to the recent hiring of five new physicians to the Williams Lake area this year.

“Two… have already started — one in February and one in April. These new physicians coming to Williams Lake are through the Practice Ready Assessment, and the UBC internationally medically trained graduate Return of Service program,” she explains. “There are incentives that the Ministry of Health has approved for compensation for locums and local physicians as well.”

Mayor Rathor says he and council also want to see if Thompson Rivers University’s current nursing program at its Williams Lake campus can be expanded to have more graduates stay in the Cariboo.

“We should work with TRU to find a program for the nursing program for four years. We do have a two-year program here, but in the third year they have to go to Kamloops,” he says.

There’s frustration about the service gaps, but ultimately, community leaders say they just want the ERs to stay open.

“Not my purview to address it, but when you’ve got this many hospitals down in one region… it’s concerning,” Goetz points out.

“I’m not only criticizing the health authority, I’m asking, ‘How can we as a city, help?’ If there’s anything we can do, tell us. We will be on board. We won’t show you our back.” Rathor adds.