Fort St. John Hospital warns of ‘high patient volumes’ as Northern Health Virtual Clinic goes down

FORT ST. JOHN, B.C. — Northern Health’s Virtual Clinic is down right as the Fort St. John Hospital is experiencing unusually “high patient volumes.”

The health authority posted to Facebook at 9:55 a.m. on August 25th warning residents to expect longer-than-usual wait times due to “high patient volumes” at the facility.

People with “less urgent care needs” were urged to contact their primary care provider to book an appointment rather than visit the hospital, in order to ensure resources were available to deal with the influx of patients.

At the time, the agency also suggested people without family doctors or primary care providers book an appointment with the Northern Health Virtual Clinic instead.

However, just a few minutes later at 10 a.m., the health authority announced on Facebook that the clinic was unable to book new appointments or access patient charts due to a “current outage.”

“If you have an appointment scheduled, please be aware that we are unable to contact you or connect you with a team member until the issue is resolved,” the post reads. 

“If you have an appointment scheduled with one of our providers today, please note that we will connect with you as soon as we are able.”

Anyone calling to book an appointment with the clinic is urged to call back later.

No estimate for when clinic services will be restored was provided. Energeticcity.ca will update this story with new information as it becomes available.