Merritt mayor says internal documents show ER closures will continue to December

Merritt’s mayor is raising the alarm about an ongoing health-care crisis in his community.

Mike Goetz told Global News he was sent internal documents by non-official insider sources within Interior Health that indicate there will be at least 32 more emergency room closures at the Nicola Valley Hospital this year.

1:52 Merritt mayor raises the alarm over ER closures

That includes six more 24-hour closures this month, 11 in November and 15 in December.

“I hate being the guy that always barks about this but if we’re shown a plan that we could work with the ministry I think we would be fine with it and we would try to muddle through to get to the end,” Goetz said.

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“But we haven’t seen any kind of conscious plan that has anything.”

Goetz said the document is speculative but he trusts the person who sent it and he will be sending a letter to Interior Health to confirm the information.

1:46 Staff shortages cause B.C. rural ER closures

BC NDP Leader David Eby said on Wednesday that they have a plan to improve health care in the province.

That involves “getting rid of the red tape that would prevent a doctor or a nurse from practicing in different health authorities so they can get to work right away, getting more doctors and nurses off the sidelines so that if they have international or national credentials so they can work with provisional licences in British Columbia and then for the long term,” he said.

Eby also said they will be opening a new medical school.

BC Conservative Leader John Rustad agreed there is a shortage of health-care professionals.

“It’s one of the reasons why we want to take control of our own immigration,” he said.

“We want to make sure (we’re) recognizing the skills of people coming in because we do need people to be able to come in, but we also need to be focused on additional training. And when people do come in, we want to make sure that they’re qualified and can come in and get straight to work.”

Goetz said the Nicola Valley ER has temporarily closed 16 times this year, including this past weekend when the ER was closed for 48 hours due to a shortage of doctors, which was 24 hours longer than originally scheduled.