Northern Health reported four emergency room closures in northeast B.C. during December 2025.
The holiday season brought snow and multiple ER shutdowns, with departments closing four times for a total of 39.5 hours, up from November’s three closures totaling 25.5 hours in Dawson Creek, Fort Nelson, and Chetwynd.
On December 25th, both the Chetwynd General Hospital and Fort St. John Hospital ERs were closed—Chetwynd from 3 p.m. to 9 p.m., and Fort St. John from 2 p.m. to 8 p.m.
On December 27th, Northern Health announced the Fort Nelson General Hospital emergency department would be closed from 9:42 a.m. to 2 p.m., without giving a reason.
The next day, they narrowly avoided overlapping closures when the Dawson Creek and District Hospital’s ER was set to close from 12 p.m. to 10 p.m., and the Fort St. John Hospital’s ER was scheduled for diversion from 5 p.m. on December 28th to 7 a.m. the following day. Just before the diversion began, staffing was found to keep it open.
Over Christmas week, the Fort St. John Hospital’s birthing centre also shut down twice—first from 6 a.m. on December 22nd to 8 a.m. on the 23rd, and again from 4 a.m. to 6 p.m. on December 28th—due to “staffing challenges.”
In total for 2025, northeast ERs closed 46 times for over 600 hours, the birthing centre closed five times for 53.5 hours, and the Northern Health Virtual Clinic had one 26-hour outage.
-With files from Caitlin Coombes - www.energeticcity.ca
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