(Lillooet River/via Wikipedia)
One of the hottest places in Canada this week is going to be without Emergency Room services due to a lack of doctors.
Interior Health has confirmed the Hospital in Lillooet is going to be shutdown from 8am Wednesday to 8am on Thursday.
The authority cites a lack of physicians as the root cause.
(Forecast for Lillooet, July 26, 4pm/via Environment Canada)
The 24-hours shutdown of the emergency room in Lillooet comes as temperatures in the area are going to hit around 40-degrees during the time the ER is closed — temperatures which can easily lead to heat stroke or worse.
Despite this, officials in Lillooet are taking this in stride.
“It’s only for one day,” noted Lillooet Mayor Peter Busse. “Interior Health was in contact with us all through yesterday [Tuesday]. We’re disappointed, but we’ll get through it.”
It does come at a time when emergency rooms are being temporarily shutdown in different parts of Interior Health, with the ER in Clearwater once-again being shut down overnight on Tuesday due to staffing issues.
As for the situation in Clearwater, which has seen a series of close to 30 unexpected E-R shutdowns since the start of the year, Interior Health says it is working on a solution.
Carl Meadows, the Executive Director of Clinical Operations for the Thompson-Cariboo, told Radio NL last week they have been consulting with ER Staff in Clearwater personally who told him that part of the issue with unfilled shifts, was because some of the shift rotations were not ideal.
“We are in the process right now of presenting them with a rotation that removes a specific on-call shift overnight that many gave us feedback that they didn’t like it, they didn’t want it. So we’ve changed the rotation so it’s balanced,” said Meadows.
Meadows added IH is also working with frontline staff in Clearwater to allow nurses to pick and choose their preferred rotations. After that, he added IH will then work to recruit health care professionals to fill the gaps.
Clearwater and area residents are advised Dr. Helmcken Memorial Hospital Emergency Department will go on diversion at 6 p.m. tonight until 7 a.m. Wednesday, due to limited staffing availability.
Full details are here: https://t.co/ymcvIElZ4R— Interior Health (@Interior_Health) July 26, 2022
