Nearly 2,400 temporary emergency room closures were recorded in British Columbia between 2023 and 2025, according to a Postmedia analysis of Health Ministry data. At least one emergency department briefly shut down on more than 900 days out of the 1,095-day period.
Worst day saw seven ERs closed simultaneously
The worst day was June 23, 2024, when seven emergency departments were temporarily closed. Some reopened but closed again the same day, resulting in 11 reported closures on that single date.
Starting in August 2024, closures began impacting the Lower Mainland, when the ER at Mission Memorial Hospital was shuttered on three occasions for just under a total of 24 hours.
Northern and Interior Health hardest hit
The majority of closures involved hospitals in Northern and Interior Health, which together accumulated 26,600 hours of closures over the three years. The hospital in Chetwynd was one of the worst impacted, with more than 200 temporary closures during the period, 10 of which lasted 24 hours or longer, according to ministry data. On average, the Chetwynd ER was closed for 10 per cent of the year from 2023 to 2025.
The health centre in Hudson's Hope, a small community one hour west of Fort St. John, had 289 individual closures lasting more than 2,200 hours, or 91 days, over the three-year period.
Doctors see no improvement ahead
Doctors do not believe 2026 will be much different. “Our members are not suggesting there’s been any significant change or improvements coming their way around emergency room closures and support,” said Adam Thompson, president of Doctors of B.C., an advocacy group.
“Rural and smaller communities are particularly vulnerable, partly because they tend to have a lower staffing, so one or two people going off can just shut down a department,” Thompson added.
New website for ER closure info
In January 2026, the Health Ministry announced a new website to inform people about emergency room closures in the Northern Health region. Island Health offers a similar website listing estimated wait times and status for emergency departments. They are the only two health authorities to provide centralized, real-time information about ER closures.
Incentives and the 'whack-a-mole' approach
The province has offered signing and retention bonuses to entice health-care workers to fill staffing gaps in remote and rural communities. However, Paul Adams, executive director of the B.C. Rural Health Network, called it “the whack-a-mole approach to ER closures.”
“If you are filling a position because it’s incentive-based and you’re able to draw an individual to a community, you’re drawing them from somewhere, and they’re all staffed at a skeletal level, so when you take that one key player out, the system collapses,” he said.
Adams emphasized that securing transportation and accommodation is an essential first step for patients in remote and rural communities “so people are not forced into taking on debt in order to receive the care they’re entitled to.” He added, “You can go a long way in reducing the number of chronic patients in the system if you’re willing to pay for them to seek the care that they need outside of their community.”
