‘Do something, anything,’ Merritt mayor pleads as critical senior at closed ER taken to Kamloops

The mayor of Merritt said his level of frustration is nearing the boiling point after the small Nicola Valley Hospital was shut down last week for the 11th time this year because of a nursing shortage.

“It’s no way to run a health-care system,” Mike Goetz said.

An elderly man was discovered around 3:45 a.m. Thursday in critical condition lying on the ground at the hospital doors and had to be taken by ambulance to Royal Inland Hospital in Kamloops, 85 kilometres away.

The victim was having trouble breathing and communicating with firefighters, who were first to respond, according to Dave Tomkinson, Merritt’s fire chief.

The hospital had been waiting to open when a nurse arrived from Vernon, almost five hours away, but that nurse was recalled to deal with a fatal car crash near Revelstoke.