PENTICTON — The mayor of Merritt is bypassing the British Columbia government and appealing directly to Ottawa for help with chronic emergency room closures at Nicola Valley Hospital, saying provincial efforts have failed after nearly four years of recurring shutdowns..Mayor Mike Goetz is sending a formal letter to federal Health Minister Marjorie Michel requesting an immediate investigation and potentially for the federal government to assert control over Interior Health Authority management of local hospitals in the Southern Interior.“There has to be some sort of a higher power look at this because whatever they’re trying to do right now isn’t working,” Goetz said.He told local media the level of trust that the province can fix the problem is gone. “I think we’ve gotten to a point where the level of trust and the ability to fix this is gone and I think at this point we need some federal intervention to fix this issue. It’s just simply not going to happen provincially.”The request comes as Merritt hosts more than 200 wildfire evacuees and 150 to 200 firefighters, including international crews, while the community deals with the Ainslie Creek wildfire and related alerts along the Coquihalla Highway corridor. Goetz said the hospital’s emergency department was expected to close for the tenth time in 2026 over the coming weekend, following a recent overnight closure..“If someone gets injured, we need an ER to take care of those folks. It’s a dire situation to have our ER closed during this gigantic fire season we have right now. It’s unacceptable,” he said. Firefighters working shifts on the fire lines would face an roughly one-hour trip to Kamloops or Kelowna for emergency care if the local department is closed.Goetz said Interior Health has been seeing a closure about every three days across its region, a pattern that has continued steadily for almost four years. He noted 100 Mile House has already logged 36 closures this year and estimated Merritt’s emergency department has closed more than 100 times over the past four years. In 2025, Interior Health recorded 137 ER closures, or roughly one every 2.6 days.During closures, patients are directed to Royal Inland Hospital in Kamloops..The mayor has previously said the shutdowns are often predictable, with advance warnings from the health authority, yet staffing gaps for nurses and physicians persist.Goetz has repeatedly sought answers from provincial Health Minister Josie Osborne and said recent efforts have met with silence, with no comment for two to three weeks. The city has previously invoiced the province for more than $100,000 in costs downloaded onto municipal taxpayers, primarily from firefighters covering medical calls when ambulances are tied up transporting patients out of town. He said the municipality pays in advance each year for full coverage but loses 45 to 50 days of service annually, and earlier bills have gone unanswered.Health care delivery falls under provincial jurisdiction. Interior Health has attributed temporary service interruptions at rural emergency departments to staffing shortages, particularly during summer months when vacations and other pressures increase. The authority routinely directs patients to call 911 for life-threatening emergencies or seek care at the nearest available facility.Goetz has long argued the situation places an unfair burden on rural communities and their volunteer-heavy fire departments. He has previously worked with other Interior mayors facing similar problems and pressed successive health ministers for concrete staffing and retention plans..Independent MLA Elenore Sturko, responding to the mayor’s appeal, said the move is unprecedented. “To my knowledge no other BC Mayor has ever called upon the federal government to investigate and assert control of a health authority,” she posted on X. “It speaks volumes about the frustration and total lack of faith in the BC NDP government. For too long the NDP has failed to deliver basic services, particularly in areas outside metro Vancouver.”The appeal comes as British Columbia remains under a provincial state of emergency declared due to the wildfires. At a press conference in Penticton on Wednesday, a reporter noted that the federal government has indicated accommodation supports are available for evacuees but is still waiting to hear back from the province on coordination. .ER closures have remained a persistent problem under the BC NDP government, even after Premier David Eby and the health ministry announced in March that more than 400 U.S. health-care professionals had accepted job offers in the province.
