Dan Davies pens letter to Adrian Dix over recent hospital closures 

FORT ST. JOHN, B.C. — Peace River North MLA Dan Davies wrote an open letter on Wednesday addressed to B.C. Health Minister Adrian Dix expressing his anger over the frequent hospital diversions in the region. 

In the letter, Davies mentions residents concerns over the city Hospital’s frequent emergency department closures. The letter came hours after Northern Health announced the fifth emergency department diversion at Fort St. John Hospital in six days.

“The Fort St John hospital is the regional hospital serving over 30,000 people and covers in enormous industrial work force,” Davies wrote. “You can only imagine how people feel after multiple closures in a row.” 

The letter also says Davies has spoken personally with Dix about the state of healthcare in the region several times. 

“I have written to you about the closures and the risk it puts people in, I have raised this issue with you in the legislature, and you have had many conversations with Health Critic MLA Bond – yet still there seems to be no hurry to fix our collapsed health system.”

Davies says he and the public only receive notifications from Northern Health in Facebook posts announcing the closures only hours before. 

“I believe there has been a failure to properly notify the public about the closures. I was quite surprised to see a list of closures for the month of July already planned out, yet the public only finds out hours before the closure. This is absolutely unacceptable.”

The MLA closes his letter, saying there are solutions to fix the problem.

“It is high time that the government stop with little slogans and actually fix the problem of rural health care. Although I am focusing on the Fort St John hospital, the same can be said for Fort Nelson and many other communities across BC.”