Fighting to save ER

Photo: change.org

A petition to save emergency services at Ashcroft Hospital and Community Health Care Centre has received 2,000 signatures from local residents.

The petition was started by Sheila Corneille in response to ongoing closures of the hospital's emergency department.

“We’ve been seeing that since 2012, the decline of emergency services starting that far back ... but (we’ve) always been told that it is a temporary measure," Corneille says. "The final straw is when we were down to only weekend emergency services.” 

"We learned that another nurse had given her resignation, we knew that the staffing levels were extremely low and so we decided that it was time to stop just accepting the word that it was going to be temporary and say, 'No, this is not good. We need to change something."

Corneille says Ashcroft MLA Jackie Tegart has been supportive and tried to help the resident group get the attention of Interior Health and the Ministry of Health.

Berni Easson, Interior Health's health service administrator for Thompson-Cariboo Rural, says the health authority is open to working together with the coalition.

“We know that any disruption to service at the emergency room is very worrisome for the local residents, and we’re doing everything we can to try and prevent that disruption to service,” she says.

According to Easson, IH is actively recruiting nurses to deal with the problem.