Lillooet mayor presses for rural health-care co-operation after another weekend of ER closures

The Lillooet Hospital emergency room reopened Tuesday morning after three overnight closures throughout the Thanksgiving long weekend.

Lillooet Mayor Laurie Hopfl anticipates the trend will continue, and likely worsen, before the end of the year.

She tells 1130 News Radio that long weekend closures pose a greater burden on the community with a long list of those affected.

“Our community, the surrounding Indigenous communities, vulnerable groups, and those without reliable transportation,” Hopfl listed.

“Being that Lillooet is two hours away from any other ERs, it becomes difficult and sometimes impossible to access emergency care, especially when transportation services might be limited,” she added.

Hopfl says she with spoke with 15 other communities, also experiencing ER closures, on what is and isn’t working at the UBCM convention last month.

Now she wants to form a ‘Rural Leaders Network’ targeted for early 2025.

“Let us, as the Mayor and Council, overhaul the current process and create a recruitment team made up of Divisions BC, a hospital representative, a local physician, a member of the St’át’imc First Nations community, and a member of Mayor and Council that can promote the beauty of living in Lillooet.”

She says she hopes to add more and more stakeholders to the new rural health-care leadership group, eventually introduce it to the next provincial health minister, and “establish a relationship that focuses on unique health-care challenges facing rural communities.”