PEI

Montague hospital ER closed Monday evening, all day Tuesday

Kings County Memorial Hospital's emergency department will close Monday at 3 p.m., and will remain closed all day Tuesday, because of a lack of doctors.

The emergency department will reopen at 8 a.m. Wednesday

Exterior view of the Kings County Memorial emergency department entrance.
The emergency department at Kings County Memorial Hospital will be closed from 3 p.m. Monday until 8 a.m. Wednesday. (Jane Robertson/CBC)

Kings County Memorial Hospital's emergency department will close Monday at 3 p.m. and will remain closed all day Tuesday because of a lack of doctors, says a written release from Health PEI. 

It will reopen Wednesday morning at 8 a.m.

There have been about a dozen closures of the ER at the Kings County Memorial Hospital since last fall because of a lack of doctors.

A public meeting was held in Montague on May 18 to tell the community about changes being made to limit closures.

These included cutting shift times for doctors working in the ER from 14 to eight hours and determining whether low-risk patients could be seen the next day rather than admitting them.

There was a public meeting on May 18 about the Kings County Memorial Hospital emergency room closures. (Jane Robertson/CBC)

Those changes went into effect June 1.

The issue of the closures was raised in the P.E.I. legislature after a Health PEI memo was issued listing 13 days in June the hospital would be understaffed. 

Anyone with urgent medical needs should access Queen Elizabeth Hospital or call 911, the release said, and people with health concerns or needing health information can call 811 to speak with a registered nurse.

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