BOYLE – Village of Boyle mayor Colin Derko is confident the facility won’t be closing down anytime soon, but the temporary hours that were implemented at the Boyle Healthcare Centre for the month of July, have now been extended through August as well.
Alberta Health Services alerted the village and public to the extension of the temporary hours July 22, a couple days after village council met and discussed the ongoing issues with staffing at the hospital, that has seen a rash of random emergency room closures at night for more than a year, and now for nights in the summer, which includes halting inpatient admissions altogether.
“Until Sept. 1, 2022, the Boyle Healthcare Centre will be open from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. and closed overnight, from 8 p.m. to 9 a.m.,” stated a public service announcement from AHS. “This will allow existing staff to provide consistent service each day, during the times when the majority of emergency department and outpatient visits occur. Inpatient admissions will be paused.”
Last year, the closures were due to a lack of physicians, as a single doctor covered the community by himself as a new doctor completed his initial Canadian training to replace him. The recent closures for the summer are “due to high vacancies among nursing staff and an inability to secure sufficient temporary coverage.”
“For the size of the facility and what’s going on, Boyle can function with one RN on staff, but right now, we don't have that RN,” Derko said, adding that AHS uses a formula that includes analyzing historic patterns of usage to determine when closures are safest to take place, which was applied in this case.
Rumours have long been swirling in the community about the facility’s permanent closure due to its small size, but after bringing up the topic at a recent meeting with a senior North Zone administrators with AHS, Derko said they were “horrified” to hear that was the thought in people’s minds.
“It wasn't something thrown together willy-nilly, and she was heartbroken and the others that I've talked to, were the same way,” Derko told council at the July 20 regular meeting. “These individuals … they've given their lives to healthcare, and this was never anything they would have ever dreamed of, so it's killing them too.”
He said he was also approached by another official who read a recent letter he sent to AHS to express his concern and the concern of area residents about the future of the healthcare centre in the community and that when residents see closures like this, it doesn’t inspire confidence in the long-term viability of the facility, and they jump to conclusions.
“So, when I put it to her like that, she had a genuine look of being horrified like, ‘Holy, we don’t want people to think that’. It was a genuine look of (surprise),” Derko said, noting he also asked her to provide a public response he could share at the meeting.
“Our hospital is not in danger of being closed,” he went on to say, paraphrasing that response. “It's simply because of the circumstances that AHS is in right now with the nursing situation and things are going to get back to normal, they just got to get things figured out and they want to make some changes.”
Further, she stated in her response to Derko that AHS understands “this decision is causing concern in the community, but rest assured this is a temporary measure … the Boyle Healthcare Centre has always been important to this area, and they have no intentions of this effecting the facility forever, so, that was good news and some bad news,” Derko said.
He also said he was optimistic the issues at the healthcare entre would soon be resolved.
“Obviously we hope that it's overnight, but I think we haven't seen the end of this yet. However, it's not a hospital closure thing and it's not going to get worse on us, but we may see this repeating, but again, that's just my opinion,” Derko said.
“Patient safety and care remain the highest priorities for AHS. The organization is working hard to ensure everyone will receive the care they need through its partnership with EMS and a robust regional network of healthcare centres,” the AHS release went on to state, adding that patients seeking care may also be made aware of services available through local pharmacies and are reminded to call Health Link at 811, which is available 24/7 for non-emergency health-related questions.
