This weekend, emergency rooms in the province were closed again.
Due to staff shortages, emergency departments in Dawson Creek and Hazelton had to close Sunday evening and will reopen later Monday morning.
Lillooet Hospital’s emergency department is currently in the midst of a 48-hour closure that ends at 8 a.m. Tuesday.
The emergency department at Lake District Hospital in Burns Lake will close at 8:00 a.m. on Monday and reopen at 8:00 a.m. on Tuesday.
Between Friday night and Sunday evening, the emergency departments in Mission, Oliver, Merritt, Kitimat and Mackenzie were also closed due to staff shortages.
They are all now open again.
Meanwhile, the mayor of a community on Haida Gwaii says the funding of the Northern Health Authority needs to be questioned due to the closure of numerous emergency rooms.
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In February 2023, Masset residents staged a protest when they learned that the emergency department at the northern Haida Gwaii Hospital might be closed.
The hospital’s emergency department has experienced more than three dozen outages this year, the most recent of which occurred on August 8.
Masset Mayor Sheri Disney says if Northern Health cannot provide its services, perhaps the funds should go to independent health care providers instead.
“If Northern Health says we can’t provide these services in your area, then I think other organizations might be able to,” she said, “and that the health services intended for our area might be able to better serve our community through other community programs.”
Global News has reached out to Northern Health for comment, but we have not yet received a response.
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