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For the second time in less than a week, the emergency department at the hospital in 100 Mile House was closed temporarily as the mayor of the community in B.C.’s South Cariboo region calls for meaningful long-term solutions.
The emergency department at the 100 Mile District General Hospital was closed Monday from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m., according to the Interior Health authority, the second time that the ER had been closed in the new year.
The health authority previously announced the ER would close on the morning of Jan. 2 for 25 hours. The closure lasted 13 hours, the health authority said, after it secured physician coverage.
Last year, the ER at 100 Mile House recorded at least more than two dozen temporary closures.
Interior Health advised anyone needing urgent care to visit Cariboo Memorial Hospital in Williams Lake, which is about a 90-kilometre drive from 100 Mile House, or call 911.
Mayor Maureen Pinkney said the main reason for the temporary closures at the 100 Mile House hospital is a lack of doctors.
The mayor of 100 Mile House is speaking out after yet another emergency room closure in the community of about 20,000 people. As CBC’s Tiffany Goodwein reports, it’s one of many ER closures across B.C. over the holidays.
“It’s complicated,” she said. “We have two off on leave and when only four of the nine that we have work the ER, that doesn’t leave enough people left to man the post,” she told CBC’s Daybreak Kamloops.
She said the temporary closures are of concern to the community, which is located on Highway 97.
“We’ve been fairly lucky with these closures that the accidents that have happened have happened on either side of the closure day, but we did have one where the person had to go further,” Pinkney said.
“It’s alarming because we have a lot of outdoor sports, we have a lot of hockey tournaments and every time someone’s putting on an event, they’re now checking the ER to see if there’s going to be a closure or not.”
Pinkney said Monday that she had sent a letter to B.C. Health Minister Josie Osborne on Dec. 16, and has not received a response. She added that she has had conversations with Interior Health “that are looking positive down the road.”
“We know this isn’t a quick fix, but there [are] some things that could change quickly that would really make an impact.”
She said she would like the province to extend the hours that nurse practitioners are allowed to work to help alleviate some of the pressure faced in rural ERs.
The Ministry of Health said work is underway provincially to explore options to better integrate nurse practitioners into emergency departments.
Daybreak Kamloops7:01ER closures test 100 Mile House resilience
Mayor Maureen Pinkney reflects on holiday ER shutdowns, mill closure fallout, and cautious optimism as the community looks toward long-term solutions in the year ahead.
Other hospitals face temporary closures
Back in November, the Ambulance Paramedics of B.C., a union that represents more than 4,500 paramedics and dispatchers, said there had been more than 250 temporary hospital and emergency room closures at that point in 2025.
Communities like Lillooet, Delta, Williams Lake and Chetwynd — among others — had faced temporary ER closures in 2025 due to staffing shortages.
Last month, Fraser Health announced that Mission Memorial Hospital’s emergency department will operate from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. from Dec. 29 to Jan. 6.
The Ministry of Health said that while health-care services may temporarily change at individual hospitals, access to emergency and specialized care is maintained across regions through planning, shared resources, and patient flow between sites.
It also said it has implemented numerous rural practice programs to attract, retain and support rural health-care providers, adding that more than 174 U.S. health-care workers had accepted positions in B.C. since a recruitment campaign started in March.
Interior Health announced earlier in December that four hospitals in the B.C. Interior — three of which have had periodic emergency-department closures due to staffing shortages — were starting a pilot program where emergency-care patients may be seen virtually by an off-site doctor.
