Merritt ER the latest to close due to limited staff availability

Emergency room closures in the B.C. Interior continued this weekend, with Nicola Valley Hospital in Merritt the latest to shut down due to lack of staff.

Interior Health announced Saturday evening that the hospital's emergency department would close at 8 a.m. Sunday and remain closed for 24 hours because of "unexpected limited physician availability."

The health authority said patients requiring emergency care would be diverted to either Royal Inland Hospital in Kamloops, 84 kilometres away, or Kelowna General Hospital in Kelowna, 129 kilometres away.

Other services at the Merritt facility will remain available during the ER closure.

Sunday's unexpected closure in the Nicola Valley followed an overnight closure in the South Okanagan.

The emergency department at South Okanagan General Hospital in Oliver was closed overnight Saturday because of limited physician availability. It was the second time in three days that the Oliver ER had shut down, following an overnight closure Thursday night.

Elsewhere, the emergency room at Dr. Helmcken Memorial Hospital in Clearwater has been closed more nights than it has been open in August as staff shortages continue to plague medical facilities throughout B.C. and across the country. 

Paramedics and family doctors are also in short supply in B.C.

On Saturday, the union representing ambulance workers warned that "many" of the Lower Mainland's ambulances were sitting empty, with none staffed at all in the City of Maple Ridge. Sunday, the union said Mission had no staffed ambulances, and some areas had just one.

“It really is dire this weekend. Hope is down to one ambulance, Oliver and Osooyoos are down to one ambulance,” said Troy Clifford, president of Ambulance Paramedics of BC.

“Across the Lower Mainland and Metro Vancouver we’re running at 30 to 40 per cent not staffed ambulances.”

Still, BC Emergency Health Services said areas were covered. In a statement to CTV News, BCEHS said it “is a provincial service with no municipal boundaries."

"When we have ambulances out of service, we can dispatch ambulances from surrounding areas,” BCEHS said, adding that it is monitoring staffing levels and “taking actions to fill shifts as quickly as possible when they are vacant."  

Primary care is also not "adequately serviced right now" in B.C., according to Dr. Josh Greggain, who spoke to CTV Morning Live last week. 

Burnout from the COVID-19 pandemic and the overdose crisis are widely cited as factors contributing to the lack of adequate staffing across the medical field.

Workers have also argued that facilities were understaffed before the pandemic, and the roughly 4,000 people placed on unpaid leave in October 2021 for refusing to get vaccinated against COVID-19 further reduced the workforce. 

The provincial government has touted its efforts to recruit and retain workers and said it is working on a 10-year strategy to address staffing issues in health care. 

Premier John Horgan has stressed that more funding from the federal government is needed to address the issues facing the health-care system in B.C. and across Canada.