Emergency room closures rise this week across Grey-Bruce

It’s a bad week to get sick or hurt in parts of Grey and Bruce County. ERs in hospitals in Durham, Chesley and Walkerton are all closed at different points this week and over the weekend.

“To say that we were going to be exempt from it, no. I guess we get to say we’re lucky it hadn’t happened before,” said West Grey Mayor, Kevin Eccles.

In Eccles’ community of Durham, the town’s emergency department will be closed every night this week starting Wednesday, and every Saturday and Sunday night until the end of July.

The nearby Chesley hospital, closed every night and weekend already due to nursing and doctor shortages, is closed all day Tuesday and Wednesday. Even Walkerton’s emergency department, largely unaffected by ER closures so far this year, is closing its ER as of Friday night.

“It’s not going to improve this summer, and we’re just going to keep turning over every stone to try and minimize disruptions for our patients, our staff, and our communities,” explained Mary Cardinal, vice president of people and chief quality executive with the Huron Perth Healthcare Alliance, who have also faced many temporary ER closures at their hospitals already this summer.

The situation would be even worse if not for the use of doctors and nurses from across the rest of the province and Canada. At the hospital in Durham, a physician flies in at least once a month from British Columbia to cover ER shifts at the small town hospital.

While it doesn’t solve the shortage of healthcare staff right now, Huron-Bruce MPP Lisa Thompson said the impending influx of nurses from provincially funded programs will help eventually.

“That gives me confidence as we look forward, we’re going to have enough resources to ensure the right care is available when we need it, no matter where we call home,” she said.

But until that time, every ER closure raises community doubts about the future viability of their community’s emergency department, and ultimately, the hospital.

“Concerned. I don’t think there’s a worry as of yet about the hospital,” said Eccles. “Our delivery of healthcare overall, I’m concerned about that, of how we’re going to do that.”

“This summer will be very difficult, there’s no doubt about it,” said Cardinal. “I would say our healthcare leaders spend an inordinate amount of time every day staffing emergency departments and other areas within our hospitals.

To learn more about the ER closures this week and weekend in Grey-Bruce, you can visit the South Bruce Grey Health Centre website. The ER situation in parts of Huron-Perth can be found on the Huron-Perth Healthcare Alliance and Listowel Wingham Hospitals Alliance websites.