The City of Merritt has been forced to live through another shutdown of the local emergency room.

Interior Health sent out a notification just before 9pm Thursday, announcing the emergency room at Nicola Valley Hospital would be shutdown from 10pm until 7am Friday morning – citing a lack of available staff.

It’s not clear whether this is a doctor or a nursing shortage.

Merritt Mayor Mike Goetz calls the closure “unacceptable,” telling Radio NL he intends to speak with Health Minister Adrian Dix about the closure today, as well at the Union of BC Municipalities convention in Vancouver on September 21.

“I’ve met with Mr. Dix – we’ve met in the office – and we’ve agreed that when this kind of thing happens that we will work together,” said Goetz.  “I told him that I will still register my unhappiness over this, but we need to work toward a solution.”

But a frustrated Goetz suggests when a community loses their emergency room – particularly during a time when hundreds remain displaced due to wildfires – the situation becomes more than an ‘inconvenience.’

“Through these times, hospitals need to be [open], especially when you’re having evacuations, especially when you’re having fires and people are on the move all hours of the day,” noted Goetz.  “We had people coming into our ESS [Emergency Social Services] Center at 12:30, quarter-to-one at night.”

During the overnight shutdown of the Nicola Valley Hospital’s ER, people in Merritt were told to take their emergency medical issues to Kamloops in Royal Inland Hospital.

This is the tenth time this year the ER in Merritt has been shut down due to a lack of staff.