More work is being added to the plate of staff at Royal Inland Hospital until Tuesday morning, as the Emergency Department at the hospital in Lillooet has once again closed down, as of 7am on Monday morning.

The local ER in Lillooet isn’t due to reopen until 8am Tuesday, with Interior Health shutting it down due to the lack of doctors to cover the shifts.

This means anyone needing emergency medical care in the Lillooet area is being told to make the 2 hour trek to Kamloops to wait in the City’s already-busy emergency room.

A lack of available medical staff — mostly doctors in the case of Lillooet — has shut down the local emergency room 18 times in 2024.

This includes three separate overnight closures during the Truth and Reconciliation long weekend at the end of September.