B.C. hospitals prepare for evacuated hospital, long-term care patients from NWT

The B.C. government is expecting about 55 hospital patients or care home residents from the Northwest Territories to arrive in the province this week as the territory is faced with evacuations due to wildfires.

Health minister Adrian Dix says this number may increase, and it may happen on Thursday or Friday depending on flights being organized with the Canadian Armed Forces.

This announcement comes three days after the City of Yellowknife declared a state of local emergency due to wildfires.

Dix says the province is working closely with staff in the NWT to organize the transfer. As well, he says that staff from Vancouver Coastal, Fraser Health, and Providence Health Care are prepared for the arrivals, with hospital staff having already gone through the patient’s charts.

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Most of the long-term care patients will go to go to Mount St. Joseph’s in Vancouver, Dix said, as it has available space.

“The hospital patients will be triaged and assessed at our operation center at YVR as they arrive and then brought forward,” Dix said in an update Thursday. “BC Emergency Health Services are obviously very much involved with Health Emergency Management BC in organizing patient transport at this time.”

Dix says it is not the first time Vancouver hospitals will be taking in patients from another region due to extreme weather conditions.

“You will recall in 2021 in B.C., more than 300 patients were transferred to Metro Vancouver from Interior Health at that time, overnight by aircraft, so this is something that unfortunately… we’re well prepared for,” he said.

Dix says “everybody at all levels” is working to support the patients.

“These are tough times of course, but it goes without saying that in this country, we support other jurisdictions… when they’re facing very challenging, very difficult, really terrible circumstances,” he said.

Dix says there are currently between 9,400 and 9,700 patients in acute care hospitals in the province.

– With files from The Canadian Press and Hana Mae Nassar