{"id":165693,"date":"2026-08-12T21:04:22","date_gmt":"2026-08-12T21:04:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/165693\/"},"modified":"2026-08-12T21:04:22","modified_gmt":"2026-08-12T21:04:22","slug":"merritts-mayor-calls-on-ottawa-to-assert-control-to-end-er-closures-amid-wildfire-threat-radio-nl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/165693\/","title":{"rendered":"Merritt\u2019s Mayor calls on Ottawa to assert control to end ER closures amid wildfire threat | Radio NL"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\"Merritt's<\/p>\n

Photo showing sign (pink) on front door announcing the shut down of the Nicola Valley Hospital’s Emergency Room in October, 2023\/via Mike Goetz<\/p>\n

As the City of Merritt acts as both a refuge for wildfire evacuees and a staging area for those fighting the fires, the Mayor is now inviting Ottawa intervene and stop the recurring closure of the local hospital\u2019s emergency department.<\/p>\n

The municipality is sheltering around 300 evacuees displaced by the explosive Bald Range wildfire which forced some 13,000 people from Summerland<\/a> on Friday night and Saturday morning.<\/p>\n

Merritt is also hosting roughly 150 wildland firefighters, including international crews deployed from Mexico<\/a> to assist the BC Wildfire Service.<\/p>\n

These personnel are actively battling the 61,000-hectare Ainslie Creek wildfire, which continues to push eastward and has prompted expanded evacuation alerts along the Coquihalla Highway corridor.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Merritt Mayor Mike Goetz\/via City of Merritt<\/p>\n

With expectations the Nicola Valley Hospital emergency department is going to be shutting down for the 10th time this year over the coming weekend, Mayor Mike Goetz is both slamming and bypassing provincial authorities when it comes to trying to keep it open.<\/p>\n

He is sending a formal letter to federal Health Minister Marjorie Michel, requesting she launch an immediate investigation and potentially take over the role the Interior Health Authority has in managing local hospitals in the Southern Interior.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere has to be some sort of a higher power look at this because whatever they\u2019re trying to do right now isn\u2019t working,\u201d argued Goetz.<\/p>\n

Goetz notes the people on the front lines of the fire fight near Merritt are being left without immediate, 24-hour medical care while operating in a hazardous environment.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese firefighters are working shift, they\u2019re out there on the fire\u2026 and somebody gets hurt, well you know, now they\u2019re making a one-hour trip to Kamloops or Kelowna, \u201d added Goetz.<\/p>\n

The mayor noted that recent attempts to get answers from Victoria regarding the current situation have been met with silence, arguing that provincial Health Minister Josie Osborne has not made herself available to address the ongoing service interruptions.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s been no comment from Josie on anything for almost two, three weeks now\u2026 the news has gone to her for a comment, there\u2019s been nothing,\u201d said Goetz.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Health Minister Josie Osborne making an announcement at the Legislature\/via Gov\u2019t of BC<\/p>\n

The ER shutdowns at the Nicola Valley Hospital, as well as in other communities such as 100 Mile House and Clearwater, aren\u2019t a huge surprise, with Goetz noting that IHA executives did warn that the hospital would be facing a series of summer shutdowns.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019d be like me saying to you, \u2018Oh by the way, you\u2019re gonna get hit by a car next Wednesday, you know, be prepared,’\u201d Goetz argued. \u201cIf you know you\u2019re gonna get hit by a car, you\u2019re gonna be looking around, right?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you know these closures are coming, how can you not fill them?\u201d he lamented.<\/p>\n

The Nicola Valley Hospital has struggled with chronic staffing shortages for several years, primarily due to a lack of available nurses and physicians.<\/p>\n

According to data previously cited by the Mayor, there were 137 emergency room closures across the Interior Health region in 2025, averaging one closure every 2.6 days.<\/p>\n

The move by Goetz to try to draw Ottawa\u2019s attention to the issue of ER shutdowns City of Merritt has previously attempted to hold the province financially accountable, invoicing the government for over $103,000 to cover the costs of local firefighters responding to medical emergencies during hospital closures.<\/p>\n

When the Nicola Valley Hospital emergency department is shuttered, Interior Health routinely directs patients to access emergency services at Royal Inland Hospital in Kamloops.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Photo showing sign (pink) on front door announcing the shut down of the Nicola Valley Hospital’s Emergency Room…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":165694,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[53263,53258,53262,53261,53256,116,53257,61,53259,53260,53264,53265],"class_list":["post-165693","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ottawa","tag-inside-politics","tag-interior-news","tag-jim-harrison","tag-kamloops-blazers","tag-local-first-news","tag-news","tag-news-talk","tag-ottawa","tag-peter-olsen","tag-reimer-road-show","tag-shane-woodford","tag-the-interiors-news-talk"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165693","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=165693"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165693\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/165694"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=165693"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=165693"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=165693"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}