Two emergency rooms in B.C. will be closed overnight for the foreseeable future until the province can recruit enough staff to return to 24-hour operations.
On Friday, Health Minister Adrian Dix said Port Hardy Hospital’s emergency room will be open from 7 a.m. until 5 p.m. The emergency room at the Cormorant Island Health Centre in Alert Bay will be available from 8 a.m. until 7 p.m.
“We’re gonna get back to full time,” Dix said. “It’s not going to be weeks. It’s going to be longer than that.”
The hospital in nearby Port McNeil will remain open 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Dix said by announcing the operational change, patients and families will know where and when emergency services are available.
“People need to know when services are available and when they are not,” Island Health president and CEO Kathy MacNeil said.
This comes after a Port Hardy physician raised the alarm, saying two of his colleagues plan to resign later this year, leaving him the only emergency physician for the community.
According to Statistics Canada data from 2021, Port Hardy has a population of about 3,400. The number of people living there actually fell from 2016, when there were more than 3,600.
Dr. Alex Nataros has been calling on the province to approve the use of physician assistants,
On Friday morning, the B.C. Liberals echoed Nataros’s plea.
“B.C.’s health-care system is in a deteriorating state of crisis, and David Eby should be considering any solutions that would help alleviate pressure on the collapsing system and support our overworked health care workers,” B.C. Liberal Leader Kevin Falcon said in a statement.
“With our health-care system collapsing, it’s time to let physician assistants work in B.C.”
Physician assistants work under a doctor to help with things like conducting patient interviews and exams, assisting in surgery and writing prescriptions under the name of the doctor. Unlike nurse practitioners, physician assistants do not practise independently — all the work they do is in the name of the doctor they work for.
Dix said that the province is taking other measures to alleviate the problem on Vancouver Island, including recruitment and retention of staff.
He said while physician assistants were not part of the announcement on Friday, the Ministry of Health and College of Physicians and Surgeons will look at it.
“It’s an idea we’re working through,” Dix said.
$30M plan
The province said it will spend $30 million to improve health care on northern Vancouver Island.
That’s for things like accommodation and transportation for staff willing to travel for work.
Additionally, the province said it will bring in more protection service officers to improve safety at North Island hospitals.
Island Health said it will establish new 24-hour mental health and substance use services, including sobering beds.
Long-term care beds are also being added in Port Hardy, the province says.
The province and Island Health also announced expanded CT diagnostic services and upgrades to the Port Hardy and Port McNeill hospitals, though what those actual upgrades look like was not mentioned.
“We’re going to improve services in the long run,” Dix said.
“It’s not all easy all the time. These are difficult issues to address.”
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