South Island hospital shortages and slowdowns mounting

Overnight staffing issues at Saanich Peninsula Hospital

Island Health announced on Sat. that due to staffing issues the Saanich Peninsula Hospital’s ER will focus on “serious medical needs” from 11pm to 7am. That means that non-urgent patients may wait longer or be “given the option” to go home and come back in the morning.

Island Health said that typically 8.5 patients would visit during those hours. That Saanich Peninsula ER had an abrupt full overnight closure in Aug. 2021.

In the two years since then, Island ER closures have mainly happened in the North Island. Island Health said in March that those shortages are improving following a jolt of provincial funding in response to some ERs closing overnight indefinitely.

But closures are spreading back to the South Island, which has had concerning shortages but few outright closures.

The day before the peninsula hospital notice, doctors at the Lady Minto Hospital on Salt Spring called for public support over what they say are severe staffing shortages expected to last through the summer.

Salt Spring doctors’ letter warns public ‍

Two dozen 12-hour shifts remain unfilled through August and a doctor is not always on site, they wrote to the Gulf Islands Driftwood last Friday. They say this is creating small-island-specific risks given that an ambulance can’t simply drive to the next community like at other hospitals under diversion protocols.

This problem ties in to the paramedic shortages and other healthy system problems in rural areas and ferry-dependent Gulf Islands—where necessary emergency care is still at times delayed by a lack of water transportation.

Lady Minto’s ER entrance as seen in Island Health’s tour video

The Lady Minto Staff Association letter argues that doctors are burning out from keeping up 24/7 emergency and hospital care while running their own practices, and that this is being exacerbated by Salt Spring’s aging population and lack of family doctors, psychiatrists, and midwives (who have been overwhelmed for years in BC, even pre-pandemic).

Work to build the Minto a new $12.8M emergency room began a year ago and is set to finish this fall.

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Read more on small islands’ challenges with emergency medical care here .

Read more on BC’s staffing crisis in nursing here .

Saanich Peninsula Hospital entrance (Island Health)