Interior Health is saying the circumstances that led to the back-to-back Emergency Department closures at Cariboo Memorial Hospital were “unexpected” and are “not anticipated to happen again.”
Karen Cooper, the Executive Director of Clinical Operations with Interior Health, said the Williams Lake hospital did have a full physician and nursing coverage going into the weekend before the “unexpected challenges” occurred.
Cooper added that this was the first time Cariboo Memorial had experienced back-to-back Emergency Room (ER) closures in the summer of 2024.
“We’ve managed to go from last August all the way through to this past weekend with only one other service interruption like this in February of this year,” Cooper said. “I want to reassure the public that going forward, we are not anticipating these unexpected and unplanned resource challenges. For the most part, we can mitigate when we get these short notices, but in this case, we just didn’t find the backup staff in order to stay open.”
Cooper reassures Williams Lake and the surrounding area residents that Interior Health is learning what it needs to do differently to continue to further stabilize services.
Recently, the health authority recruited a new ER physician and seven new nurses, a new primary and urgent care center is in Williams Lake, which is used for non-life-threatening care, and, in the case that a service interruption does occur again.
“We’re starting to see the staffing levels we need,” said Cooper. “Unfortunately, perfect storms do happen, and this last weekend was one of those. But we’ve learned from it, and we’re doubling down in our mitigation strategies to avoid having this happen again.”
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