B.C. Interior emergency room closed for 25 hours

Nicola Valley Hospital and Health Care Centre in Merritt, B.C., is seen in this photo from the Interior Health website.

Anyone needing emergency care in a city in B.C.’s southern Interior will need to seek help elsewhere until Monday, as the latest ER closure in the region has shuttered the department’s doors for 25 hours.

In a notice Sunday, Interior Health said emergency services at the Nicola Valley Hospital in Merritt will be unavailable from 7 a.m. Sunday to 8 a.m. Monday.

The health authority asked patients to go to Royal Inland Hospital in Kamloops during the closure, about an hour’s drive away.

As always, anyone experiencing a life-threatening emergency like chest pain, difficulty breathing or severe bleeding was told to call 911 for transport to the “nearest available and appropriate facility.”

Merrit’s mayor Mike Goetz sent an invoice to the province earlier this year, seeking compensation for the ER closures in the city. According to his calculations, at least one ER was closed in the Interior Health region on 29 of 31 days in July.

The diversions continued through August, and in September there have been more than 10 ER closures in Interior Health so far.

The closure in Merritt was not the only ER disruption in the health authority’s jurisdiction this weekend.

The ER at South Okanagan General Hospital in Oliver was closed Sunday morning, from 5 a.m. to 12 p.m. In Lillooet, the department closed overnight, from 8 p.m. Saturday to 8 a.m. Sunday. The 100 Mile District General Hospital was closed during the day Saturday, 7 a.m. to 8 p.m.

A lack of available physicians was cited as the reason for all four ER closures.