Minister of Health comments on Fort St. John Hospital emergency department closure

FORT ST. JOHN, B.C. — Minister of Health Adrian Dix says emergency room closures like the one impacting the Fort St. John Hospital Thursday are often a result of one or two people not being able to come into work.

Northern Beat founder Fran Yanor asked Dix questions for Energeticcity during an interview Thursday afternoon. The interview comes after Fort St. John’s hospital closed its emergency department from 9:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. on May 2nd due to “challenges with physician coverage.”

“I think what happens on individual days is we are dependent from time to time on one or two people,” Dix said.

“When we don’t have a standard, we can’t keep the emergency room open, and that’s what happened [Wednesday, May 1st]. In Fort St. John, it happened very late in the process. People called in and were unable to come work, which is absolutely legitimate, but we had to take that decision, and Northern Health had to take that decision, as a result.”

Dix said one initiative the province is using to try to stop closures caused by limited staffing is employing teams of “locums,” doctors and nurses who can fill in for others at a regional level.

A locum is a person who temporarily fulfills the duty of another.

In a statement provided to Energeticcity, Northern Health said locum workers are part of its strategy to improve overall staffing.

“In Fort St. John, we are continuing to aggressively recruit among local and locum physicians and have recently identified additional local physicians with an interest in potentially providing emergency department coverage,” the health authority said. 

“Work is ongoing to refine incentives and other supports to make emergency department coverage more attractive to both local medical staff and available locum physicians.”

Dix also described another initiative that’s specific to the north, meant to limit the impact of closures when they do occur: expanding ambulance services in rural and remote communities.

“So we’re able to respond when this happens with very significant supports for people to get them to the emergency room. In this case [for Fort St. John residents], it would be Dawson Creek.”

Dix also said the way emergency departments operate has changed over the years to the point where most emergency room doctors are locum workers.

“Often now we have communities that have seen closures, where none of the doctors working in the community are working in the emergency room,” he said. “So it’s all locum.”

According to Dix, the lack of doctors willing to work in emergency departments, especially at night, is partially caused by hospitals’ traditional “fee for service” payment model, where physicians and nurses are paid based on the number of services they provide to patients.

That model presents problems for workers during slow periods of the day with limited numbers of patients.

“So what we’ve moved to in Oliver, and we’re seeing real results, what we moved to in Clearwater, and we’re moving to in other communities, is called an alternative payment model,” Dix said.

“We’re essentially paying for the shift, which is what we should do in those circumstances.”

Dix said Fort St. John currently operates on a slightly different model, but he thinks the alternative payment model “helps us in primary care everywhere.”

“It helps encourage people who live in a community to work in that community,” he said.

Thursday marked the second interruption at the Fort St. John Hospital’s emergency department in 2024. 

The frequent interruptions and wait time increases have frustrated some residents, including Peace River North MLA Dan Davies, who, once again, called for Dix’s resignation in an interview with Energeticcity Thursday morning.

“The largest hospital, the regional hospital for the whole northeast — having the emergency department completely closed, it’s scary and it’s unacceptable,” said Davies.

“It just goes to show the state of healthcare under this NDP government over the last seven years. It is unbelievable that we’re even having this conversation.”

When asked about solutions for the staffing difficulties faced by hospitals in the region, Davies said there are several solutions the government has considered, including training more doctors, bringing in international healthcare workers, and creating incentives for doctors to come and stay in the north.

However, he says the government isn’t doing enough.

“There are things to be done, but right now, the NDP government is just doing the same thing over and over again, hoping for different results, and it’s not working.”

When asked what Davies would tell the Ministry of Health if given the opportunity, his message was loud and clear: “fix the problem.”

“Don’t just give us little soundbites that sound good, fix the problem,” he added.

Dix dismissed Davies’ reaction by saying it was the “Liberal’s whole health response” to “call people names and call for their resignation.”

However, the Minister of Health says the MLA “does a good job,” adding that he’s worked with Davies before on local issues and intends to do so in the future.