Article – The wall calendar at Dawson Creek Hospital’s staff lounge tells a story in red ink. Handwritten notes mark each day the emergency room doors closed—3 hours here, 12 hours there, sometimes entire weekends. By August 2025, the tally has become so routine that the tracking feels almost ceremonial.
“We started marking closures to help staff track the schedule changes,” says nurse Leanne Whitford, who’s worked in Dawson Creek for 11 years. “Now it’s become this visual reminder of how our healthcare system is struggling. Some months, there’s more red ink than black.”
These calendar markings represent a troubling reality across northeastern British Columbia. Since January, emergency rooms in Fort St. John, Dawson Creek, Chetwynd and other communities have been closed for a combined 1,247 hours—the equivalent of 52 complete days. Northern Health confirmed these figures last week, marking the highest closure rates since regional tracking began in 2021.
For residents like Martin Ghostkeeper from Fort Nelson, these closures aren’t just statistics. Last month, his wife experienced severe abdominal pain at 2 a.m., only to discover their local emergency department was temporarily closed.
“We drove almost three hours to Fort St. John,” Ghostkeeper tells me as we sit in his kitchen. “The whole time I’m thinking, what if this is her appendix? What if something happens on this highway?” His wife was diagnosed with gallstones requiring surgery, but the experience left him shaken. “This isn’t what healthcare should look like in Canada.”
The challenges facing northeastern B.C.’s healthcare system mirror issues seen across rural Canada but with distinct regional pressures. According to Northern Health data, 76% of closures stem directly from staffing shortages—primarily a lack of physicians and nurses willing to practice in remote communities.
Dr. Rahul Sharma, who splits his time between Fort St. John and Vancouver, points to housing costs as a major barrier. “When I first came here in 2018, you could find reasonable accommodation. Now, with all the industrial development, housing costs have skyrocketed,” he explains. “New physicians look at the cost of living, the isolation, and the workload and choose urban centers instead.”
The B.C. Rural Health Network recently published a comprehensive report documenting how resource development has transformed northeastern communities without corresponding infrastructure investments. Energy projects have brought economic growth but also strained local services while driving up living costs.
“It’s the paradox of prosperity,” says University of Northern British Columbia researcher Dr. Martha Connelly. “These communities generate significant provincial revenue through resource extraction, yet basic services like healthcare remain chronically underfunded.”
Statistics Canada’s 2024 healthcare access survey shows rural Canadians are three times more likely to lack a family physician than urban residents. In northeastern B.C., this figure climbs even higher—approximately 42% of residents report having no regular primary care provider, compared to the provincial average of 17%.
For Indigenous communities, these challenges compound existing healthcare inequities. In Fort St. John, I meet with Danielle Cardinal, a health advocate with the Treaty 8 Tribal Association.
“When emergency rooms close, our people are disproportionately affected,” Cardinal explains as we walk through the association’s health center. “Many don’t have vehicles to drive to the next town. Some elders won’t seek care at all because of past discrimination experiences.”
The provincial government has responded with recruitment incentives—offering signing bonuses up to $75,000 for physicians willing to commit to three years in underserved communities. According to B.C.’s Ministry of Health, 12 new physicians have been recruited to the northeast since January, though critics note this barely keeps pace with retirements and departures.
Northern Health has also expanded virtual care options and increased the scope of practice for nurse practitioners. These solutions help bridge gaps but cannot fully replace emergency services.
Back in Dawson Creek, community members have taken matters into their own hands. Local business owner Jaylene Morrison started the Northeast Healthcare Advocates Group, which now has over 3,000 members.
“We fundraised to renovate three apartments above the downtown shops,” Morrison tells me as she shows me the newly completed units. “They’re specifically for healthcare workers coming to town. We can’t fix the entire system, but we can remove one barrier.”
The group has also organized transportation networks to help elderly residents and those without vehicles reach healthcare during local closures.
As my visit coincides with yet another weekend closure at Chetwynd’s emergency department, I observe a community adapting to an uncertain healthcare landscape. At the local coffee shop, handwritten notices advise residents of the nearest open facilities. The town’s Facebook group includes a post from a resident offering rides to Fort St. John for anyone needing medical attention.
Dr. Karin Kausky, chair of the Rural Coordination Centre of BC, sees both warning signs and reasons for cautious optimism in northeastern communities.
“These emergency room closures represent a healthcare system at its breaking point,” Kausky says. “But we’re also seeing innovative community responses and a growing recognition that rural healthcare requires fundamentally different approaches than urban models.”
For northeastern residents, the path forward remains unclear. The calendar in Dawson Creek’s staff lounge continues filling with red ink, each mark representing hours when medical emergencies require lengthy detours or dangerous waits.
As Martin Ghostkeeper puts it: “We understand living rural means some compromises. But basic emergency care shouldn’t be one of them.”
