The Mayor of Merritt says he intends to try and withhold tax revenue that goes to the province to make up for the lack of service at the Nicola Valley Emergency Room this year.

Speaking on NL Newsday, Michael Goetz says he doesn’t want his community to pay for a service they never got.

“At the beginning of the year you hand the government X amount of dollars for certain things like your hospital and everything else like that, there is a number attached to it. Don’t really absolutely know what the number is but we know there is a number to it,” Goetz said.

“I come from an old school of thought that if you pay for something you should actually have that.”

There have been fourteen closures at the Merritt ER this year – due to a lack of either doctors or nurses – with five of those coming last month.

“If we’ve been closed for 14 days, the government automatically should say coming into 2024, ‘hey, you know what, we’re going to knock 14 days off because you guys closed.’ I’d be cool with that,” Goetz said.

“My taxpayers and myself, we should not have to be paying for something that we never got.”

Radio NL has reached out to the Ministry of Health for clarity whether the City of Merritt will be able to withhold this tax revenue from being remitted to the province.

“If we’re not able to, then I still need to have the government explain to me why its okay to expect payment for an item that was never given to the people that are paying for it,” Goetz said, noting Merritt is not the only community where ERs have been closed due to a lack of staff.

“Its Oliver, and its New Denver, and its Keremeos. You’re getting this money but we’re not getting what we paid for so we should automatically be reimbursed,” Goetz added. “We do it to the people who have pool passes. If we have a disruption of service, we automatically credit them those days back and I would expect the government to the same thing.

“Will they say, ‘hey, you can’t do that?’ I’m quite sure they will so we’ll see if we can or we can’t.'”

Goetz tells Radio NL he also wants to bill the province when Merritt firefighters have stepped up to help paramedics transport patients out of town to places like Kamloops.

“[When we have closures] our ambulances are almost immediately taken out of town, which means our Fire Department has to start answering medical calls,” Goetz said. “That’s not what they’re trained for, so I’ve asked our Fire Chief to make out a billing list on what we cover and we will send that to the province for reimbursement.”

“If they have to go ahead and start [responding to medical calls] then we need to be compensated for that.”

New subcommittee formed to address ER closures in Merritt

Goetz’s comments come as the City of Merritt has formed a new subcommittee – which will include representatives from the City and Interior Health – to try and address the series of closures at the Nicola Valley Hospital Emergency Room by focusing on recruitment and retention of doctors and nurses.

“We’re at 44 per cent of our nursing capacity, and we need more of that so we have to have more of a concrete plan here to move forward and help out with IHA, but we still have to fight for our hospital and that’s what we’ll continue to do,” Goetz said.

Goetz says his community has been calling on the province to bring forward long-term, strategic plans to address the “crumbling” healthcare system. He’s also gone on record to say the series of closure have been “unacceptable”, pointing to Merritt’s location along the Coquihalla Highway.

“If we don’t work with [Interior Health], we have no idea what the plan is, and as a sub-committee of council, the meetings and that plan would have to be put out to the public so then we can actually see what the plan is,” Goetz said. “If there is a viable plan, great. If not, if its just a bunch of hot air, we’ll find that out as well.”

“Right now, they can say they have a plan but you never see what the bones of the plans are, so you have no idea what its going to do.”

Health Minister Adrian Dix told Radio NL that his Ministry is working closely with the City of Merritt on recruitment and retention of nurses and doctors.

“Merritt, like Grand Forks, is the recipient of numerous incentive programs to recruit people to the community,” Dix said.

“We are working hard every day to fill shifts to make sure that we don’t see closures or that they happen very rarely, but the fundamental thing is to have solutions that mean there are no closures and that is working we are working for in Merritt and everywhere else.”