The Interior Health Authority is scrambling to try to find medical professionals to step up and fill holes which are creating a swathe of Emergency Department closures in the region.

This weekend has seen Interior Health shut down the Emergency Department at Dr. Helmcken Memorial Hospital in Clearwater twice already — with another also pending.

What was originally supposed to be a 13 hour E-R closure from Friday evening  into Saturday morning has since been expanded to cover most of the weekend.

This includes another 13 hour shutdown from 6pm Saturday to 7am Sunday, followed by yet another 13 hour closure 24-hours after the E-R in Clearwater opens on Sunday, with Emergency Medical Services due to be shuttered on Monday from 7am to 8pm.

This will force those in need of emergency medical services to drive over 100 kilometers south to Kamloops.

In better circumstances, folks in the North Thompson could try their luck at a potentially shorter wait for emergency medical services at the community hospital a similar distance drive into the Cariboo in 100 Mile House.

However, 100 Mile House’s emergency department is — itself — is facing closures this weekend and into next week, but with a bit of a reprieve coming part way through the weekend.

“Interior Health has secured staffing coverage at 100 Mile District General Hospital,” stated the Health Authority in a release put out on Saturday.  “Emergency services will now be available from Sunday, July 5 at 8 a.m. to Monday, July 6 at 7 a.m.”

This provides a window of coverage in an otherwise bleak emergency medical treatment scenario for folks in 100 Mile House this weekend as well.

“Emergency services will remain unavailable during the following dates [at 100 Mile District General Hospital]:  Saturday, July 4 from 11 p.m. to Sunday, July 5 at 8 a.m,” and “Monday, July 6 from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m.”

“Patients can access care at Cariboo Memorial Hospital in Williams Lake during these times,” the Health Authority noted.

While folks in 100 Mile will be sent north to Williams Lake during their E-R shutdowns, so too will people living in Merritt on Sunday.

The Nicola Valley Hospital in Merritt will have its Emergency Department shuttered for a full day — 25 hours — from 7am on Sunday to 8am Monday.

Like those living in the Clearwater area, people in need of emergency medical treatment in and around Merritt are also being encouraged to make the roughly hour-long drive to Royal Inland Hospital in Kamloops.

Authority insists rolling shutdowns not connected to nurses job action

In a rare break from the internal policy Interior Health adopted in early 2025 to not provide a rationale for Emergency Department closures, the Health Authority would offer a public mea culpa this weekend connected to the closures at Dr. Helmcken Memorial in Clearwater.

“Interior Health recognizes that these changes may have a significant impact on the community and that transparent notification is important,” stated the Health Authority in its Saturday release detailing the further shutdowns of the Clearwater Emergency Department.

“Our teams remain committed to working to cover these shifts right up to the day of each potential service interruption,” Interior Health continued as part of its public announcement.  “If coverage is secured and an interruption is avoided, we will provide an update to the community.”

In a further inquiry made by Radio NL for any additional details into what is leading to the ER closures in Clearwater, Merritt and 100 Mile House at the same time, the Health Authority insists it is not connected to the launch of job action by the BC Nurses Union earlier this week.

“The summer months can be particularly challenging as vacations and staffing pressures increase,” stated Interior Health in response to Radio NL’s inquiry.   “We do everything we can to cover staffing gaps when they occur, often right up to the last minute.”

“This weekend’s service interruptions are gaps in the schedule and not a result of current job action,” added Interior Health, saying this is the situation for both Clearwater and at the Nicola Valley Hospital in Merritt.

While nurses across BC entered into a legal strike position as of Thursday, nursing staff are also legally required to show up for their shifts under an essential service order.

However, the union — in a bid to strengthen its bargaining position — began refusing to accept “non-essential” overtime and covering “non-nursing” duties as of Thursday.

The ambiguity of what “non-essential” overtime actually entails is what led the Mayor of Clearwater to surmise that his community’s ER closures were related to a lack of available nurses, and not due to a widening gap of available doctors in the community.

“It could be a nurse situation at this particular point, with the overtime restrictions put in place for the strike,” Blackwell told Radio NL on Friday as his community was poised to enter the original 13-hour Emergency Department shutdown. “In places like us, where one person makes the difference between whether you open or not, it’s going to probably have more effect.”

Medical crunch already looming in North Thompson

Clearwater is already facing an impending shortage of medical coverage, as the community is poised to lose four of its practicing doctors by the end of September, with one of those doctors having having already left the community as of June 1st.

Adding to the frustration for Blackwell and residents in smaller communities in the area — the realities of regional resource triage.

Blackwell notes that Interior Health manages its facilities as a collective portfolio, meaning smaller communities can sometimes become casualties of a need to keep the larger, tertiary hospitals in Kamloops and Kelowna at full operation.

“Sometimes they’ll redirect resources to other places if they feel that keeping Kamloops open is in their minds more important than keeping Clearwater open,” suggested Blackwell, chuckling at a the analogy of a healthcare “Thunderdome” developing among communities.

Municipalities across B.C. are being forced into a battle for medical resources, with the District council in Clearwater putting together an incentive program to try to make Clearwater a more appealing option for medical professionals.

This local incentive package has been aimed mostly at locums — doctors for hire who will parachute into a community to provide interim coverage during vacations and other unexpected absences.

Clearwater has been making that trip into the North Thompson more appealing to locums by offering perks like gym passes, complimentary meals, and subsidized accommodations.

This is a practice that was initially frowned upon by the various Health Authorities and the Provincial Health Ministry, as they worried it could set an unfair imbalance and create more challenges in redirecting locum care elsewhere.

However, Blackwell says times and circumstances have changed a lot since thee Emergency Department at Dr. Helmcken Memorial first started shutting down on a consistent basis not long after the pandemic eased.

“If you asked me four years ago in 2022 when we were having the crisis the last time, I would have said, ‘Please, let’s not use local public funds in any way,'” Blackwell admitted. “But at this point, we’re competing with every other town and community of every size and every tax base in the province to try to retain or attract doctors and nurses.”

“If you’re not in the game, you’re not playing,” added Blackwell.

Despite the more competitive environment among the various communities in Interior Health looking to retain medical staff, Blackwell says he remains positive about the future staffing outlook in Clearwater.

A new doctor is scheduled to arrive in the community in the next couple of weeks, with a second anticipated in Clearwater by late autumn and two more projected for spring 2027.

To bridge the gap and relieve the overall pressure on his hospital’s Emergency Department, Blackwell has also petitioned the Ministry of Health and Interior Health to permanently assign two nurse practitioners to Clearwater.

“A lot of people are going to the ER for simple things that really could be done at a clinic—small wounds, small sort of checkups,” said Blackwell, arguing the nurse practitioners would go a long way toward easing the burden on any doctors who decide to take a chance on Clearwater as a place to put out their shingle.

“I’m hoping that happens in the near future.”

While Interior Health insists the Emergency Room closures in Merritt and Clearwater are “not job action related,” the Nurses Union is poised to step up is efforts this coming week.

This includes plans to set up rotating picket lines outside medical facilities by nursing staff in their off-hours starting on Monday — the same day the Union and the employer get back to the bargaining table to try to hammer out a new deal.

While the Nurses Union had recommended its members accept an earlier contract proposal, a vote by the the nurses would ultimately reject that deal, with around two-in-three nurses voting against the recommendation of their union.