Vancouver emergency-room physician Dr. Anthony Fong travelled to Port Hardy Hospital on Wednesday to help avert an ER closure, only to find a note posted on the emergency-room doors — it had been temporarily closed due to a nursing shortage.
The ongoing emergency-room closures on the North Island underscore why the North Vancouver Island Rural and Remote Division of Family Practice is hosting a health summit Monday and Tuesday at the Kwa’lilas Hotel in Port Hardy. The goal is to address the growing health-care crisis in the North Island, where three hospitals and a health centre are struggling to stay open amid chronic staffing shortages.
“It’s evident that having three hospitals staffed in a region with 10,000 to 11,000 people is not a sustainable model,” Wickstrom said . Given the lack of resources, one hospital in the North Island serving the Mount Waddington area — Port Hardy, Port McNeill and Port Alice — is the inevitable solution to the crisis, he said.
The letter says both Port McNeill and Port Hardy hospitals and emergency departments are under significant strain to remain “constantly open” and provide continuous service. There are currently a total of nine physicians in the two communities, with two physicians set to leave within the next eight to 10 months, it says.
Dr. Ben Williams, Island Health vice-president of medicine and chief medical officer, said the health authority is committed to doing everything it can to maintain 24/7 services throughout the Mount Waddington area, including Port McNeill, Port Hardy and Cormorant Island.
The NDP should buy everyone an EV so hospitals won't be required as EVs cure everything and are a far higher NDP priority.