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Chetwynd ER shutters for hour and a half due to ‘staffing challenges’

The emergency room at Chetwynd General Hospital was closed from 2:30 p.m. until 4 p.m. on January 24th. 

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The Chetwynd General Hospital. (Jordan Prentice, Energeticcity.ca)

CHETWYND, B.C. — The ER in Chetwynd closed for an hour and a half today.

Northern Health posted an update to Facebook to alert the community that the emergency room at Chetwynd General Hospital was on diversion from 2:30 p.m. until 4 p.m. on January 24th. 

It said “staffing challenges” were to blame. 

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Anyone who needed urgent medical care during that time was urged to contact 911. 

This comes just days after Northern Health launched a webpage to track the status of emergency departments around northern B.C., here

The page does not include any historical data, so it is unclear when that page was updated to display the correct information about the temporary closure. 

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It includes a disclaimer which reads: “Service interruptions can happen with little notice and after hours, and there may be a delay in posting them to this page.”

It signposts users to “also check your local community NH Facebook group.”

However, Northern Health’s Facebook update was posted at 3.41 p.m. – about an hour and 10 minutes after the closure began and with just under 20 minutes left. 

In 2025, emergency rooms around northeast B.C. closed for more than 600 hours.

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Authors

Franki joined the Moose Media team in January 2025 as news director.

Hailing from the UK, Franki graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in history and publishing media from Oxford Brookes University.

She has worked in the local news industry since 2016 on various newspapers in Britain’s south east, including as the editor of five newspapers in London. She arrived in Canada in August 2024 to travel around British Columbia, but has now settled in Fort St John.

Franki is a cat lover who enjoys reading, tap dancing, going to the gym and learning to play musical instruments in her spare time.

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