Merritt mayor urges province to solve hospital staffing issues after ill senior found outside closed ER

Merritt Mayor Mike Goetz says his frustration with closures at the city's only emergency department has reached boiling point.

The facility at Nicola Valley Hospital in Merritt, about 127 kilometres west of Kelowna in the province's Interior, has been shuttered nine times already this year due to staffing shortages, according to the health ministry.

Things came to a head for Goetz last week when he heard about a senior who had been found outside the closed department's doors in the middle of the night.

"To find a senior collapsed at the foot of your hospital when the door is closed kind of tells you how the whole system is working right now," Goetz told CBC News.

Public service announcements from Interior Health detail the closures at the Merritt hospital, most of which last between 12 and 24 hours due to limited nursing or physician availability.

The announcements say anyone in the area needing emergency care should visit Royal Inland Hospital in Kamloops, B.C., about 70 kilometres away.

That's where the senior was taken after first responders arrived, Goetz said. 

"Our fire department was called and they managed to get there before the ambulance. And they did get the person stabilized, get them ready for travel," he said.

"And then they were taken to Kamloops, which is another hour away — which is a little unfortunate for somebody who is looking for immediate care."

B.C. Emergency Health Services confirmed they were called to the area at 3:41 a.m. PT last Thursday, and took a patient to hospital.

'Broken system'

Goetz said the repeated closures at Nicola Valley Hospital are unacceptable and he's written to Premier David Eby asking him to act. He wrote to Eby, and not Health Minister Adrian Dix, he said, because Dix's contact information was taken off provincial websites.

"I ask you to have a look at this broken system that clearly does not support or protect the people of this valley," Goetz said he wrote to Eby.

"Do something, anything."

The mayor said small cities across the Interior have faced similar problems — and while he believes Interior Health is doing what it can within its power to solve the problem, the ultimate responsibility rests with the provincial government.

In a statement, Health Minister Adrian Dix said his email was publicly available and can be found online.

"I want to be clear that Mayor Goetz's letter, sent as an email, did not initially reach me as the email was sent to the wrong email address," he said. "I have since received it and contacted Mayor Goetz [Tuesday] to discuss his concerns and all of the actions the Ministry of Health and the Interior Health Authority are taking to stabilize emergency services in Merritt."

Dix said Interior Health was creating additional incentives to allow nursing staff to redeploy to Merritt in response to staffing shortages, and said active recruitment and work with local physicians was underway to mitigate staffing issues.

Several rallies in city

Merritt local Georgia Clement agreed with Goetz's frustrations.

Clement has helped organize several rallies in the city over the past few months protesting the emergency room closures, and calling on the B.C. government to adequately staff Nicola Valley Hospital.

She said the incident last Thursday was proof that for residents in and around the city, the situation can be life or death.

"If you need an emergency room and you're living in Merritt, it doesn't necessarily mean you're coming from the City of Merritt and going up to the hospital. You could be on a logging road 45 miles out of town and need an emergency room," she said.

"If you talk to the local doctors in Merritt, they will tell you happily that they have saved hundreds of lives in our emergency room by stabilizing patients who are then transported to a larger facility, who would not have made that trip had they not been stabilized closer to Merritt. So we feel that our emergency room must be staffed 24/7."

CBC News has contacted the provincial health ministry and Interior Health for comment on the staffing situation at Nicola Valley Hospital.

Clement said if the closures continue, her group plans to hold a larger rally on the Coquihalla Highway to draw attention to the issue.

Goetz said residents are anxious that the closures could become a permanent problem for the community.

"Most people [are afraid] that eventually they say, 'Well, we can't keep your hospital open. We'll just close the thing permanently and you guys can all go to Kamloops.' That is the worst scenario that could possibly happen," he said. Kamloops is about 87 kilometres north of Merritt.

"This is a small city, but it's a viable city and an active city. We have young children here, we have seniors here, we have middle-aged people here. If your hospital is not operating, you are not truly a fully operational city, town or village."