Emergency room closures persist across midwestern Ontario

The closure billboard outside Wingham’s hospital is a permanent fixture this summer, the dates just keep changing.

This weekend, Wingham’s hospital will be closed Friday night, Saturday night and all day Sunday, due to a shortage of nurses.

“As we sit here today, things look better in the fall, but like this weekend, it’s an unavoidable situation where a staff member wasn’t able to come. In small hospitals, losing one staff member, out of an already small pool leaves us at risk,” said Listowel-Wingham Hospitals Alliance CEO, Karl Ellis.

Further north in Chesley, the hospital’s ER will be closed Friday night, Saturday night, Sunday night and Monday night. Walkerton’s Emergency Room will also be closed on Monday night.

Chesley’s ER just reopened in April following a nearly three-year-long overnight closure.

The ER in St.Mary’s has been closed overnight this entire week, finally reopening to 24-hour care Saturday morning. The ER in Clinton, has been closed overnight for more than two years.

There’s never a good time for an ER closure, said hospital administrators, but the arrival of 6,000 people to Lucknow for Music in the Fields makes the overnight closures in Wingham, the closest hospital, even more concerning.

“The staffing situation doesn’t look at all the events going on. It’s a highly unfortunate weekend to be closed. The reality is, if we don’t have the people, we can’t staff the department,” said Ellis.

At the Wingham and Listowel hospitals, 45 of 400 staff members are on long-term leaves, Ellis told CTV News, most being maternity leaves. While there is an expectation all those staff will return, there is no guarantee they will.

“It’s a good news story [the maternity leaves], but it’s also hard to staff when you have that many staff on leave,” added Ellis.