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Williams Lake city council raises concerns about Cariboo Memorial Hospital ER

Council to request meeting with Interior Health
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Cariboo Memorial Hospital in Williams Lake. (Monica Lamb-Yorski photo - Williams Lake Tribune)

Williams Lake city council is requesting a meeting with Interior Health to discuss staffing issues at the Cariboo Memorial Hospital emergency department.

“I am hearing again today another doctor quit,” Coun. Scott Nelson said during the regular council meeting Tuesday, Feb. 21.

“In the last three weeks the Merritt Hospital - the emergency department - has shut down three times. Williams Lake’s not far off.”

Around 40 other smaller communities rely on Cariboo Memorial Hospital, Nelson said, adding he does not want to see the hospital in the situation where it has to close the emergency department and wants to get ahead of the curve.

“I would rather sit down with Interior Health and even the doctors themselves because I’m getting different messaging from Interior Health as to what is actually happening.”

Earlier this month, responding to an inquiry from the Tribune about staffing levels at the hospital, IH said Williams Lake is not alone in staffing challenges and the priority is to maintain full services.

“Cariboo Memorial Hospital is experiencing the same shortage of health-care workers and physicians that is occurring in health-care across Canada,” said Derek Keller, Interior Health’s clinical operations director, Williams Lake, noting shortages mean leadership have to plan weeks and months ahead to be able to ensure coverage can occur.

Nelson made a motion asking staff to request a meeting, which was endorsed unanimously by council.

Coun. Jazmyn Lyons said in the summer her own mom fell down the stairs at 3 a.m. and broke her foot.

“She drove to 30 minutes to the hospital and was immediately sent home because we had no doctors,” Lyons said. “She ended up coming back eight hours later and it was definitely broken.”

Coun. Sheila Boehm said during the last term she and Coun. Marnie Brenner were attending monthly meetings about health and were pulled off them.

Mayor Surinderpal Rathor said there is hardly a day he isn’t stopped and asked what he and council are doing to bring doctors to Williams Lake.

Since council was sworn in, he said he has stopped three doctors from moving away from Williams Lake.

“I have done everything in my office as mayor to address every question and concern they raised,” Rathor said.

After the meeting Rathor told the Tribune it will be good to have the meeting with IH.

“They are shutting down other emergency departments and we can ask what is ours going to look like?” he said.

READ MORE: UPDATE: Cariboo Memorial Hospital not unique in staffing challenges: Interior Health



monica.lamb-yorski@wltribune.com

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Monica Lamb-Yorski

About the Author: Monica Lamb-Yorski

A B.C. gal, I was born in Alert Bay, raised in Nelson, graduated from the University of Winnipeg, and wrote my first-ever article for the Prince Rupert Daily News.
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