Another 24 hours without emergency room services for Lillooet.

Originally supposed to re-open at 8 Monday morning after being shutdown for 49 hours starting Saturday morning, Interior Health has announced that its extending the current diversion to Tuesday morning at 8am.

That will make it a 73 hour shutdown — the longest to date since the Lillooet Hospital’s ER came under, what’s believed to be, internal staffing pressure due to a lack of physicians.

A lack of doctors was the issue in Lillooet before the health authority stopped providing reasons for ER shutdowns at the end of October.

Lillooet has been going through almost daily diversions for at least 12 hours or longer since March 10th.

It comes as the community’s mayor, Laurie Hopfl, is said to be leading a delegation of smaller-community leaders with ER staffing issues into Victoria this week for a scheduled meeting with BC Health Minister Josie Osborne.

It’s expected the mayors are going to be pressing for a stronger focus on rural recruitment efforts, which has become a significant challenge.

A notification from Interior Health does suggest relief from the continuing shutdowns in Lillooet is on the the way.

A bulletin dating back to March 14th from Interior Health which is posted on the community’s Facebook page does speak of a new doctor being hired into the community this month, while three more doctors are going to be added into the rotation in Lillooet in the fall.