Merritt mayor wants health-care workers assigned to hospitals after ER closures

Posted February 27, 2025 12:20 pm.
The emergency room at the hospital in Merritt was closed for the second time in a row overnight Wednesday.
Mayor Mike Goetz says it’s time the province re-examined its approach to staffing at hospitals, especially in rural communities.
He says he understands that nurses and doctors are attracted to where they can find the best work and best pay, but it leaves rural communities without access.
“We may have to start looking at a depot situation like the RCMP does, where, when you graduate, you are assigned to a hospital in a small, northern or smaller community for at least a year to two years. You go where you’re told to go. Right now, they go where they want to go. And of course, it’s always the biggest communities,” said Goetz.
The City of Delta made headlines this weekend when its ER faced overnight closures for the first time in years. Goetz says he hopes Merritt merits the same attention.
“To hear the mayor from Delta, saying, ‘When it happens out in the rural area, that’s another story, but when it happens in a big center, well, that’s a big problem.’ — Well, no, it’s not. It’s a big problem for everybody, and we’re just as important as any city. We’ve gone through this. Welcome to the club,” he said, explaining that the Nicola Valley Hospital was closed three times already in 2025 — and 20 times in 2024.
“We had issues with doctors not being able to fill the shifts. Now we’ve got issues with nurses not being able to fill the shifts. It’s frustrating, but it’s a frustration that we know we’ve come to know quite well,” said Goetz.
The mayor says the province’s new health minister, Josie Osborne, has been responsive on the issue. Goetz says he and a small coalition of other rural B.C. mayors, including Laurie Hopfl of Lillooet, are scheduled to meet with Osborne on March 28.
“I know Minister Osborne is working hard to try and fix this, and I think we as mayors and have to work with her. And I think we have to realize this is a probably a two- to five-year plan of trying to fix this. We’re not going to fix this overnight, and I know that’s going to be hard to swallow for some communities, but this is we’ve all got to work together to fix this.”
—With files from Raynaldo Suarez.