Nicola Valley Hospital (image credit - CFJC Today)

By Michael Reeve

MERRITT ER CLOSED

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Sep 28, 2023 | 4:18 PM

MERRITT B.C. — Fourteen closures this year, and two this week alone at the Nicola Valley Hospital’s Emergency Room, have left residents concerned and searching for answers.

“It’s a Band-Aid station right now. I mean, if anything really serious happens to anybody they have to ship them off to Kamloops or Kelowna,” stated a local resident.

“Personally, we live in a rural community about 30 minutes outside of Merritt. If the Merritt hospital is closed, our closest option is Kamloops — and if it’s a case of life and death, every second counts,” another concerned resident told CFJC News.

The latest closure has seemingly pushed the scale even further for Georgia Clement, who is helping organize a large protest for Sunday afternoon (Oct. 1).

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“We need people to show up on Sunday. We need to send a serious message. A couple hundred people is great, but a couple thousand people will really send a message. That is what we are hoping for on Sunday,” said Clement.

Mayor Mike Goetz stated that he’s been calling other Interior mayors in Oliver, Keremeos and New Denver, who are facing similar issues, and they plan to support the Merritt protest from their own communities this weekend.

“The idea is that if we all go out at the same time when we have a shutdown, whether it’s them our us, we all go out. Then it starts to show that we are all united in making this work. And there has to be a situation where we can make this work. It’s becoming intolerable at this point,” said Goetz.

The hospital is operating with a 44 per cent nursing complement, making recruitment and retention of the utmost importance.

“Nicola Valley Hospital is experiencing the same staffing shortages as health facilities across Canada,” said Clinical Operations Executive Director for Interior Health West, Kathy Doull. “We are working through the challenges with physician and nursing recruitment. Active recruitment is underway for physicians, nurses and other health care staff.”

With the hospital not providing emergency service to the community for 14 days this year, Mayor Goetz is planning to exclude those lost shifts from the provincial bill.

“I have instructed our CFO (Chief Financial Officer) to take 14 or 15 days off, whatever the number is when we hit December 31. Those are days we will not be remitting for, because we didn’t get any service on those day, so we aren’t going to pay for them. That would be the same thing as getting a transit pass for 30 days but only being able to ride for 14. It’s fraud, so we aren’t paying for something we didn’t get,” added Goetz.

The protest begins on Sunday at 1:00 p.m. at Central Park in Merritt.