‘The system is broken’: Fort St. John ER closures prompt stern letter to B.C. health minister

A Northern B.C. MLA has written to the provincial health minister to demand answers after his community’s emergency department saw five closures in the last week.

BC United MLA Dan Davies, who represents the Peace River North riding, says Fort St. John residents are being redirected to Dawson Creek — about an hour away — if they need emergency care.

“That’s a life-saving hour where people need medical treatment. When you have an additional hour drive to Dawson Creek, you’re putting people’s lives at risk, and that’s not right,” he told CityNews Thursday.

However, he points out the issue is not one isolated to Fort St. John.

“We’re already over 150 closures in Northern Health alone since January. So this isn’t Fort St. John specific, this is a deterioration of rural health care straight across the north,” Davies explained.

“You also have the Chetwynd hospital diverted to Dawson Creek at the same time. So you can imagine what that puts on the Dawson Creek hospital, which is much smaller than ours, in a smaller community. The system is broken.”

In his letter to Health Minister Adrian Dix, Davies claims he has repeatedly raised the issue, but that “there seems to be no hurry to fix our collapsed health system.”

“Sadly, with each closure, the public and my office find out from Northern Health on a Facebook post that the emergency will be closed only hours before,” Davies’ email to Dix reads.

“There are many issues at hand — one is the communications by Northern Health,” the email continues.

Last week, Dix told reporters that his ministry is working on a solution to fix repeated ER closures. However, he added that, sometimes, these closures are unavoidable.

In that case, he was speaking specifically about repeated closures in the Interior in the last few weeks. Dix said diversion is a last resort and that everything is done to try to avoid such a situation.

Last week, the BC Nurses’ Union said the problem is preventable, adding residents and nurses deserve better.

The union said staff retention has always been an issue but added that it has been getting worse. The BCNU once again sounded the alarm, calling for the province and health authorities to take a critical look into fixing the problems leading to closures in various communities.

The province has said the issue worsens in the summer, when people call in sick, or go on vacation. It said it’s working on retaining and recruiting doctors and nurses, adding ambulances, appointing casual staff to vacant and full-time positions, and providing virtual physician support at some hospitals.

-With files from Catherine Garrett