North coast MLA Jennifer Rice and B.C. Minister of Health Adrian Dix recently made a visit to Prince Rupert in light of the city dealing with its fair share of concerning emergency room closures, or to be more specific, eight in total since the start of March alone. While both did express their frustrations at the closure race, did also mention what is being done in an attempt to recruit more E.R. doctors.

 

“We are building a modern emergency department. It'll be brand new operational in a year, and that, in my view, will be an additional incentive to recruit the physicians that we need to work here.” – Jennifer Rice – North Coast MLA

 

Rice also went out of her way to quash rumors that the Prince Rupert Regional Hospital itself would be shut down and replaced with a health clinic, while also providing some more details on Prince Rupert's upcoming emergency room renovations.

“And this renovation that the emergency department renovation is roughly about 16 and a half million dollars and that those costs are shared between the province, Northern Health and the Northwest Regional Hospital District.” – Jennifer Rice – North Coast MLA

 

But in another recent interview, Skeena MLA Ellis Ross gave his own opinion on how best to try and get out of this medical situation.

 

“I think everybody admits now the system is broken. I mean, the previous premier of B.C. said, Yeah, the system's broken. I did not appreciate last year when the minister said that basically this is the new normal. No, this can't be the new normal. You can't just live with this. I mean, I think we've got to examine this. You know, right from the provincial level, right down to a regional level, right down to our cities and towns level, and rethink this on based on what the citizens are feeling.” – Ellis Ross – Skeena MLA

 

One of the other items brought up by Ross was a formula used by doctors to determine where it's best to work and how it might be best to change it. For areas like tourism. Prince Rupert to consider how much money is sent to Victoria from places like Prince Rupert's port and Kitimat smelter