Vancouver-area hospital turned away patients at emergency department

Mission Memorial Hospital in Mission, B.C., is seen in this file photo. (CTV News)

Patients who went to Mission Memorial Hospital's emergency department on Tuesday evening were told to go to Abbotsford General or Maple Ridge hospitals, the first time a Vancouver-area acute care facility has turned away patients due to critical staffing shortages.

Fraser Health did not make the service disruption public, which is a departure from the policy in other health authorities to notify the community that they would not find medical care at a particular ER and to go elsewhere.

Pre-pandemic, such service disruptions were unheard of, and despite contracting to for-profit staffing agencies, the problem is only getting worse.

In a statement attributed to site medical director, Dr. Paul Theron, he wrote “Mission Memorial Hospital Emergency Department was not on diversion,” instead calling it “service adaptations” due to “physician staffing challenges.”

Sources tell CTV News there was only one doctor in the entire hospital, who was tasked with caring for admitted patients, and Theron’s statement acknowledges “emergency-trained nurses were available to support walk-in patients needing basic first aid, assist with re-direction of care, or transfer patients with urgent needs to a neighboring hospital.”

Fraser Health claims the hospital’s emergency department “is stable for tonight,” but they have been offering up to $4,125 for a 10-hour overnight shift for months and are still having trouble finding qualified doctors to work in the chronically short-staffed hospital.

Langley Memorial and Peace Arch hospitals are among the Fraser Health hospitals where doctors are now being offered hefty bonuses and “other incentives” to work “critical-to-fill shifts.”

The health authority points out they are “not alone in this challenge,” and it’s true that Interior Health, Northern Health and Island Health are contacting physicians with big bucks and guilt trips, but Fraser is B.C.’s largest health authority and many physicians live there, but opt to work at better-resourced hospitals in Vancouver Coastal instead.