Interior Health is temporarily suspending all maternal services in Williams Lake between May 30 and June 2 because of a lack of staff.

Services at the Cariboo Memorial Hospital will be back to normal on June 3rd, but expecting mothers are being referred to Royal Inland Hospital during this temporary closure.

VP of Clinical Operations for Interior Health North Karen Bloemink says fewer than ten mothers are likely to be affected.

“When we reopened the maternity services for Cariboo Memorial Hospital, we were aware that we had a trouble area during this four day period, and we were hopeful that we would have been able to find nurses to cover these shifts,” she said. “But unfortunately, we have not been able to find those nurses.”

Beyond this closure, Bloemink isn’t expecting there to be any more disruptions in Williams Lake.

“We expect that our coverage will be very reliable going forward, once we get through this four day period and then into July, we have high confidence that we will have services fully back up to speed and running,” added Bloemink.

Low risk deliveries resumed in Williams Lake in April, after maternity services had to be suspended in February due to staff shortages.

Since then, two new nurses have been hired and a third is expected to start next month. Five other new nurses will start in July, which will improve the situation.

“We’re not quite through to the end of the training period for those new nurses,” Bloemink said. “Our target for that is July and we expect to have those nurses on the ground and in the unit at that time.”

According to Interior Health, between February 27 and April 29, 66 babies were born in total – 11 of those at Cariboo Memorial Hospital and 42 at RIH in Kamloops.

Since the April 30 reinstatement of low risk deliveries in Williams Lake, 20 babies were born at CMH, while at least two mothers were diverted to Kamloops.