Staff shortages forcing more rural, northern ERs to close or cut hours over holidays, doctors warn

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This article was published 10/12/2024 (324 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Three-quarters of the province’s 70 rural and northern hospital emergency rooms are cutting hours or closing their doors this month, prompting a warning from physicians for Manitobans to plan ahead over the holidays.

A Doctors Manitoba review found two fewer ERs appear to be open 24-7 this December compared with last year, said Dr. Nichelle Desilets, the organization’s president-elect.

“For the 18 hospitals that are reliably open 24-7 this holiday, we know that many of those are open by a thread,” she said at a news conference Tuesday. “That means there’s a tenuous staffing situation, and there are services like emergency services and maternity services that are very close to having unexpected closures due to holes in the schedule.

“These holes are often filled by physicians and nurses that are working overtime, or locums that are coming in from other areas.”

Doctors Manitoba said 18 ERs are scheduled to be open 24-7 this month, while 24 have limited hours or frequent closures, and 28 are fully closed on a short- or full-term basis.

Staff shortages are often to blame when hours are scaled back or ERs are closed. Some shortages are so severe that one sick call or a vacation could force a closure.

“We just need more bodies. We need more physicians, we need more nurses, we need more allied health-care providers,” Desilets said.

Hospitals in Crystal City and Minnedosa were open 24-7 every day in December 2023, but that isn’t the case this month, Desilets said.

Both have reduced hours some days, according to schedules published online. Crystal City, for example, is closed between 11 p.m. and 7 a.m. seven times in the first half of December.

“It is a concern, because we’re (80 kilometres) from the next-closest hospital,” said Murray McIntyre, reeve of the Rural Municipality of Louise, which includes Crystal City.

Residents tend to head to Boundary Trails Health Centre, between Morden and Winkler, when Crystal City’s ER is closed, he said.

McIntyre said Crystal City’s hospital has turned to agency nurses while grappling with a staff shortage.

“It started this summer a little bit,” he said of the ER’s reduced hours. “They tried to keep it open as much as they could.”

ERs in Arborg and Teulon are among a handful of long-term closures in Manitoba.

Roblin’s ER is scheduled to be closed from Dec. 23 through the rest of the month. Hamiota’s ER is due to be shut from Christmas Eve to Dec. 29.

Gimli’s ER hours are reduced to 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. some days.

Closures put more pressure on facilities in nearby communities, said Desilets, a family physician who also works in Neepawa’s ER.

She encouraged Manitobans to check ER schedules at the hospitals nearest to their home, or nearest to the communities they will be travelling to over the holidays.

Doctors Manitoba has a website, RuralCare.ca, which lists local ER schedules and advice on what to do in an emergency.

ERs at hospitals in Carberry and Glenboro, which are about 40 kilometres apart, alternate their opening days to provide coverage to the region.

Carberry Mayor Ray Muirhead and Municipality of Glenboro-South Cypress Deputy Mayor Ed Bedford said the shared services are providing decent coverage.

“We just need more bodies. We need more physicians, we need more nurses, we need more allied health-care providers.”–Dr. Nichelle Desilets

“We’re in pretty good shape compared to what it used to be. Two years ago, we were fighting just to keep our hospital open,” Bedford said of Glenboro Health Centre.

He said two physicians were recruited this year, including a doctor from the U.K. who started work this week.

“We’re going to do our damnedest to keep them here,” Bedford said.

Prairie Mountain Health’s ER schedule this month is comparable to previous years, CEO Treena Slate said in a statement.

“Efforts to recruit more health care staff to increase capacity at emergency departments throughout the region are ongoing,” Slate said.

Northern Health Region’s active emergency rooms have no planned closures over the holiday season, a spokesperson said.

Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara blamed cuts and “mismanagement” by the former Progressive Conservative government for ER disruption.

“There are real consequences for that terrible decision-making, and we are seeing that play out in rural health care today, but our government is taking steps to fix the damage the Conservatives did over two terms of government,” Asagwara said.

The minister pointed to the reopening of Carberry’s ER earlier this year. And Asagwara said the NDP has hired 870 net new health-care workers, while demonstrating better success recruiting doctors to rural Manitoba.

PC health critic Kathleen Cook said Doctors Manitoba’s review showed the situation has worsened under the NDP.

She said rural ERs are closed a combined 242 days in December.

“They’ve really just abandoned rural Manitoba in any of their planning or announcements,” Cook said of the government.

The Roblin MLA said the NDP, which campaigned on improving health care in 2023, has failed to offer a “comprehensive, credible” staffing strategy.

— With files from Maggie Macintosh

chris.kitching@freepress.mb.ca