B.C. health minister says ending vaccine mandates won’t fix ER closures

B.C.’s health minister says the dozens of emergency room closures in the Interior and northern parts of the province over the past few months are unacceptable, and his office is working every day to make sure they stop.

In the last week, there have been another seven closures, often due to staffing shortages.

On Wednesday alone, the Mackenzie and District Hospital Emergency Department will be unavailable between 6 p.m. and 7 a.m. Thursday, Aug. 1; and the Chetwynd Hospital Emergency Department announced a 24-hour closure starting at 8 a.m.

Health Minister Adrian Dix tells 1130 NewsRadio that the problem is not that staffing levels have declined since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic but rather that there used to be a culture of “presenteeism,” with staff showing up to work even if they were sick.

“Lots of people working when maybe they shouldn’t have worked. So we’ve gone from an average week of 9,000 healthcare workers missing at least one day to about an average of 20,000 missing at least one day in smaller communities,” said Dix. 

In smaller communities, Dix says there’s simply not enough staffing to pick up the slack. He added that the minimum standard of care for emergency rooms isn’t up for debate, meaning they can’t pull in any doctor or nurse to fill in who doesn’t have specific ER training. 

“There’s no: ‘Someone else can fill in.’ So we’re given an absolute fight every single day,” said Dix.

Dix says he understands the frustration of mayors and residents in small towns when their residents are diverted an hour or two along the highway for emergency care.

“That’s absolutely legitimate on the part of the mayors, but just as an example: in Williams Lake, there’s no community in Canada that has the level of incentive and effort being made to fill positions there, and we’re just going to continue to work to ensure that people get the services they need.”

Last week, the provincial government announced that the COVID-19 public health emergency in B.C. had officially ended.

As of Friday, July 26, all remaining public health orders and restrictions were lifted, including mandatory COVID-19 vaccinations for healthcare workers.

The mayor of Merritt was among those hoping that move will help prevent emergency room closures in communities like his.

“I know that we have two doctors in this municipality who have homes here who have let the minister know that if the mandates were lifted, they would return to work within a week. So that’s two doctors here for sure and probably a few more nurses. So I would say we have about four to five health-care professionals in the community that would return to work if the mandates were lifted,” Mayor Mike Goetz told CityNews shortly after the announcement.

But Dix doesn’t share the optimism of Goetz and other mayors in the Interior, who believe lifting the vaccine mandates for healthcare workers will alleviate pressures. He says there’s only a handful of full-time ER doctors and nurses who weren’t working because of their vaccine status.

“It’s not the answer to the emergency room situation. And people that think it is are misinformed.”