Manitoba Interlake emergency room to remain closed until January, Shared Health says

An emergency room in Manitoba's Interlake region will remain closed until the new year because no one is available to provide diagnostic services.

The E.M. Crowe Memorial Hospital in Eriksdale, Man., hasn't had a doctor available in its emergency department since the end of November, and it won't reopen until January because of a lack of diagnostic services, Shared Health said in a news release on Monday.

Emergency room services in the community about 130 kilometres northwest of Winnipeg were previously suspended in mid-September.

At that time, the Interlake-Eastern health region said that although there was a doctor in the region, health care couldn't be properly delivered without access to diagnostic services.

That continues to pose a problem in the hospital.

In response, Shared Health has recruited two staff from the Eriksdale area to be trained as medical laboratory assistants, and their training is set to complete in January.

Once their training is over, Shared Health's executive director of provincial laboratory operations Dr. Abdi Sokoro says the emergency department and outpatient diagnostic services will resume in Eriksdale.

Sokoro says Shared Health hopes to employ this strategy in the future in the health region, knowing that health-care workers are more likely to remain in their positions long-term if they have a personal connection in that community.

"We are looking to employ this strategy for hiring more broadly by providing locally accessible training opportunities that allow Interlake-Eastern residents to pursue positions in diagnostics without having to leave home," Sokoro said in the release.