Health P.E.I. aims to hire 5 more doctors for Kings County hospital's ER after spate of closures

Health P.E.I. says it is looking to hire five full-time emergency room doctors for Kings County Memorial Hospital in Three Rivers. 

The ER at the Montague hospital has been closed for the last four Saturdays due to staffing shortages, and the health agency's CEO expects it to be closed again this weekend. 

Melanie Fraser told CBC News the province's hospital system was under "exceptional" pressure this summer.  

"We knew that it was going to be difficult to maintain… Any time you have a small number of staff in any small organization, one or two departures — a sick call, for instance — can result in a loss of services," Fraser said. 

"I do anticipate more closures this fall before some of these recruitment activities and some of these incentives come into play." 

The incentives she cited include higher pay rates for locums at hospitals across P.E.I. Fraser said there are also bonuses for locums covering rural areas that will increase each time they work at a hospital outside the Island's urban centres. 

In the long term, the five additional doctors that will eventually be hired will boost the Three Rivers hospital's staffing levels from 1.5 full-time equivalent positions to 6.5. 

Fraser said positions will also be added to the ERs at Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Charlottetown and Alberton's Western Hospital, which also closed early Wednesday due to a staffing shortage. 

She said Health P.E.I. has no plans to shut the KCMH emergency department down permanently, because closures put more pressure on other hospitals in the province. 

"In a rural health-care system like we have, that's why it's so important to maintain these emergency departments… so that we don't have people travelling long distances to access emergency care," Fraser said.