There’s been an eleventh hour reprieve preventing the temporary weekend closure of the south Okanagan General Hospital’s emergency department in Oliver.
The ER was scheduled to close on Sunday and overnight Monday due to a shortage of doctors.
Six hundred athletes will descend on the Town of Oliver this weekend for the Half Iron triathlon and hundreds more for the grand opening of the Area 27 private race track.
The influx of visitors is all the more reason the emergency department needs to remain open, according to civic politicians.
Dr. Peter Entwistle is one of three family physicians who will work overtime to keep the ER open this weekend.
Earlier this year he resigned as the hospital’s chief of staff and ran unsuccessfully as an independent in the May provincial election.
Entwistle alleged the Interior Health Authority paid out-of-town doctors a $1000 per shift bonus to help keep the ER open during the election period.
“It feels that now that the election has finished that it becomes not a problem for them and it means that our community doesn’t have emergency medical care,” he said.
Oliver’s mayor Ron Hovanes agreed the timing is questionable.
“The optics of this weekend that kind of bothers me as well because you know the election is just over, prior to the election, the month or two before the election, there was real efforts made to make sure that this ER didn’t shut down overnight,” he said.
IHA denied paying out bonuses and said staffing arrangements were not connected to the timing of the election.
“I don’t see the correlation at all,” said Health Services Administrator Carl Meadows. “IH is committed on having a long-term solution to this issue around physician and emergency room physician coverage.”
Oliver’s emergency room was also closed for three nights last year which was a hard pill to swallow for the small community.