B.C. emergency room closing overnight through Sept. 2 as 'limited nursing availability' continues

The last time the emergency room at Dr. Helmcken Memorial Hospital in Clearwater, B.C., stayed open overnight was Aug. 10.

The facility, which is supposed to be open 24 hours a day, has been closing at 6 p.m. since Aug. 11, and reopening at 7 a.m. the following morning. On Friday, Interior Health announced that the nominally "temporary" closures would continue for another week.

The latest closures will take place on the nights of Aug. 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, Sept. 1 and Sept. 2, according to the health authority, which says "limited nursing availability" is to blame.

When the emergency department in Clearwater is closed, patients are diverted to either Royal Inland Hospital in Kamloops or 100 Mile House District General Hospital in 100 Mile House. Both of those facilities are more than 100 kilometres away from Clearwater, by road.

Interior Health says other inpatient services at Dr. Helmcken Memorial Hospital are not affected by the ER closures.

Clearwater Mayor Merlin Blackwell has been an outspoken critic of the closures. On Twitter Friday, he described the combination of emergency department closures and understaffing of the province's ambulance service as "playing Russian roulette with people's health." 

Nearly every facet of B.C.'s health-care system is currently struggling with a lack of staff.

Emergency departments across the province have had to close or cut back on hours because they don't have enough physicians or nurses, and health authorities have increasingly been turning to for-profit nursing agencies to make up for shortages of nursing staff. 

The province's ambulance paramedics' union has similarly warned of available vehicles sitting empty because there aren't enough workers to staff them. 

Family doctors have also been struggling with recruitment and retention. Earlier this week, the provincial government announced $118 million in funding to help general practitioners with the cost of overhead and keep clinics open while the Ministry of Health and Doctors of B.C. negotiate a new payment model for primary care. 

B.C. Premier John Horgan has been quick to point out that the issues the province is seeing have been playing out across the country. He and other premiers have been pushing the federal government to provide more funding for health care. 

Still, opposition parties in B.C. say there's more the provincial government can and should be doing to address the situation.