Fort Nelson’s emergency department interrupted again

FORT NELSON, B.C. — Fort Nelson General Hospital’s emergency department services were interrupted again on the 24th for over 12 hours, and government officials are looking for solutions.

On January 24th at 3:07 p.m., Northern Health posted in a Fort Nelson and Area Facebook group about the service interruption from 3 p.m. until 7 a.m. on January 25th.

Peace River North MLA Dan Davies says he has reached out to B.C.’s Minister of Health, Adrian Dix, about the interruptions in Fort Nelson and has yet to hear back.

Davies says there needs to be a mechanism in place to prevent interruptions from occurring.

He suggests pulling someone from Prince George and flying them to Fort Nelson so the emergency department has coverage.

“Sadly, that’s a bandaid solution, but it’s the minimum that we should be doing,” Davies said.

Northern Rockies Regional Municipality (NRRM) CAO Scott Barry says interruptions don’t only happen to the Fort Nelson General Hospital — the interruptions are due to the province-wide nursing shortage.

Barry says Fort Nelson has nurses in the community who are from out of the country, but the process of getting them certified in B.C. is very lengthy.

Davies says nurses and doctors with degrees from other countries are often not qualified to work here until they complete more schooling.

“Is it any wonder why these doctors are just going down to the states, making twice the money, and they can walk right into a job,” Davies said.

Davies also believes Canadian universities need more funding to expand their medical programs to train more doctors and nurses.

Another issue that has come up locally is they may have a nurse, but if they aren’t trained in the emergency room, they can’t cover that shift.

“They have the training qualifications but not necessarily the right ones from an emergency perspective,” Barry said.

Fort Nelson is unique because when its hospital has a service interruption, the next closest option is in Fort St. John, approximately four hours away.

“The burden of responsibility gets shifted from the health system in terms of the hospital and Northern Health to the transport system, which is B.C. Ambulance,” Barry said.

“It’s a very delicate, fragile situation right now locally because, given the distance, you can overwhelm resources quite quickly.”

Barry says typically, an ambulance will get called out to, at most, about half an hour away, but when it’s sent to a different hospital, it strains BC Ambulance Services when transporting patients because it becomes a ten-hour round trip.

From what he’s seen, Barry says Northern Health is doing everything possible to mitigate the service interruptions.

“But you can’t wave a magic wand and have a nurse just appear,” Barry said.

This week’s interruption was due to a nurse being sick.

“Nurses are people. They get sick, and they have a right to stay home and look after that illness,” Barry said.

“Some of the backlash that’s occurring from that select few in the public, that’s putting pressure [on nurses]. Inappropriate comments back to the staff don’t help the situation.”

Barry says the nurses, doctors and B.C. Ambulance staff are just doing their jobs.

MLA Davies says the larger picture is that the province needs a fundamental change in delivering health care.

“Get rid of a lot of the bureaucracy, get more doctors and frontline workers into our hospitals and start addressing the issues that we have,” Davies said.

“There’s a lot of fat that can be trimmed, and it needs to be put on the front lines where people need it.”

At approximately 4:30 p.m. on December 26th, Northern Health announced a diversion would begin at 6:30 p.m. and remain in effect until 7 a.m. on the 27th.

The NRRM held a special council meeting on January 2nd, with Northern Health representatives and members of the public in attendance.

A resolution in favour of a new memorandum of understanding between the NRRM and the Regional Hospital District was passed during a special Regional Hospital District meeting on January 8th.

The following day, on January 9th, the emergency department at the hospital was unavailable from 5 a.m. to 7 p.m. due to “challenges with nursing staff availability.”

According to Northern Health, it is working to attract and retain the health professionals needed in Northern B.C. More information on service interruptions can be found on Northern Health’s website.