‘Like playing Russian roulette with somebody’s health’: 26 ER closures at Lillooet Hospital this year

Lillooet's hospital emergency room has been closed more than two dozen times this year, and some residents say it's putting lives in danger.

Lytton-area resident Don Glasgow is still recovering after his second heart attack last month.

Still, he considers himself lucky.

That’s because Lillooet Hospital’s emergency room, roughly an hour’s drive away, was open the day he needed it, but closed the days before and after his heart attack.

“It’s like playing Russian roulette with somebody’s health,” said Don’s wife, Tricia Thorpe, who is also a director with the Thompson-Nicola Regional District.

“You never know if it’s going to be open or closed and you don’t plan heart attacks.”

Thorpe said Lillooet’s ER, the closest hospital for them, has been closed 26 times this year.

“It’s an incredibly significant risk to the community at large,” said Paul Adams of the B.C. Rural Health Network.

“It’s also a huge risk to the tourists and people travelling throughout the region.”

Health Minister Josie Osborne said it’s an incredibly challenging situation.

“I know that Interior Health is doing everything they can to cover the shifts that need to be done and there are circumstances that arise sometimes when they just can not to that. And it really speaks to the ongoing need for attracting more physicians and nurses in particular into rural communities,” the minister said, adding that she has been working with Lillooet’s mayor.

Compounding the problem for people like Glasgow is that Lytton’s former medical centre, which included urgent care, burned in a wildfire nearly four years ago.

“We used to have those facilities here in town so that if somebody had something like that happen, they could at least be stabilized so we could get them out of here, and we don’t have that anymore. And it’s dangerous,” said Thorpe, who is calling on the province to fix the problem.

“We need the service back here in Lytton,” said Denise O’Connor, mayor of the Village of Lytton.

“We haven’t had a commitment yet whether they’re going to rebuild or not. We’ve heard they want to rebuild, but we haven’t had any commitments yet from the province,” she said. “We are working to come together to help identify what the level of service is we want. I mean, we’ve been very clear we want what we had before or better.”

When asked about the situation in Lytton, Osborne said: “Obviously, after the tragic fire that just razed their community, one of the most important things we can do is to support the rebuilding of all kinds of infrastructure, and that includes the health infrastructure. So that’s why we’ve been working with them directly on re-establishing health services there.”

Meanwhile, critics say ER closures have created a rural health-care crisis.

“People, I think, have been very patient in waiting for changes to happen, but we need some urgency applied to the situation,” said Adams.

“When you’re in a crisis, you need crisis management … We’re really looking to see some rapid response happening around these closures,” he said. “We need teams of people available to deploy to communities that know that they’re going to have additional ER closures. And when one is coming up, we need to fly teams in and keep doors open.”

As for Glasgow, he said the lack of emergency medical care in his area and the dozens of ER closures in Lillooet worry him at a time when he needs less stress in his life.

“In the future, something like that happens (an urgent health issue), we just head for (the hospital in) Kamloops” Glasgow said.

Royal Inland Hospital is about a two-hour drive from Lytton.