Despite the Clearwater emergency department once again facing another overnight closure Thursday, it appears relief could be coming by mid-September.

The emergency room will be closed from 6 p.m. Thursday until 7 a.m. Friday – one of over a two dozen closures this year – due to a lack of staff.

Clearwater Mayor Merlin Blackwell met with Interior Health’s Carl Meadows, this week to look at the staffing shortages at the hospital.

Meadows, the Executive Director of Clinical Operations for the Thompson-Cariboo, says they have been consulting with ER Staff in Clearwater personally who told him that part of the issue with unfilled shifts, was because some of the shift rotations were not ideal.

“We are in the process right now of presenting them with a rotation that removes a specific on-call shift overnight that many gave us feedback that they didn’t like it, they didn’t want it. So we’ve changed the rotation so it’s balanced,” Meadows said, on the NL Noon Report.

Meadows adds IH is also working with frontline staff in Clearwater to allow nurses to pick and choose their preferred rotations. After that, he adds IH will then work to recruit health care professionals to fill the gaps.

“Right now, the rotation I told you that they didn’t like, it is now an improved one. So that could attract people because as you would do and I would do, you want to look at a rotation that is going to work for you and your family.”

Additionally, Meadows says IH has added another resource to the team in Clearwater.

“So we have added a second RN, so it is not just a re-tweaking, we have actually invested on an additional RN Line.”

Speaking on the NL Morning News, Clearwater Mayor Merlin Blackwell said his appearances with numerous media outlets got the attention of health authorities.

“I get this feeling that the province from Adrian Dix and Susan Brown, I think they heard me. I don’t know why. It’s very effective that we were able to be that loud thanks to a lot of media attention,” Blackwell said.

“Really it is all a big part on the media coverage. Between Sunday morning after we had that unfortunate sort of drive-by of the ER by ambulance and I think by Monday night I did nearly 20 local, regional, provincial, national news interviews on every form of media out there.”

Blackwell said it is rightfully so that he got as much coverage as his community has the highest rate of closures in British Columbia and likely the most of any small towns in Canada.

-With files from Bill Cowen