Photo showing sign (pink) on front door announcing the shut down of the Nicola Valley Hospital's Emergency Room in October, 2023/via Mike Goetz
As the City of Merritt acts as both a refuge for wildfire evacuees and a staging area for those fighting the fires, the Mayor is now inviting Ottawa intervene and stop the recurring closure of the local hospital’s emergency department.
The municipality is sheltering around 300 evacuees displaced by the explosive Bald Range wildfire which forced some 13,000 people from Summerland on Friday night and Saturday morning.
Merritt is also hosting roughly 150 wildland firefighters, including international crews deployed from Mexico to assist the BC Wildfire Service.
These personnel are actively battling the 61,000-hectare Ainslie Creek wildfire, which continues to push eastward and has prompted expanded evacuation alerts along the Coquihalla Highway corridor.
Merritt Mayor Mike Goetz/via City of Merritt
With expectations the Nicola Valley Hospital emergency department is going to be shutting down for the 10th time this year over the coming weekend, Mayor Mike Goetz is both slamming and bypassing provincial authorities when it comes to trying to keep it open.
He is sending a formal letter to federal Health Minister Marjorie Michel, requesting she launch an immediate investigation and potentially take over the role the Interior Health Authority has in managing local hospitals in the Southern Interior.
“There has to be some sort of a higher power look at this because whatever they’re trying to do right now isn’t working,” argued Goetz.
Goetz notes the people on the front lines of the fire fight near Merritt are being left without immediate, 24-hour medical care while operating in a hazardous environment.
“These firefighters are working shift, they’re out there on the fire… and somebody gets hurt, well you know, now they’re making a one-hour trip to Kamloops or Kelowna, ” added Goetz.
The mayor noted that recent attempts to get answers from Victoria regarding the current situation have been met with silence, arguing that provincial Health Minister Josie Osborne has not made herself available to address the ongoing service interruptions.
“There’s been no comment from Josie on anything for almost two, three weeks now… the news has gone to her for a comment, there’s been nothing,” said Goetz.
Health Minister Josie Osborne making an announcement at the Legislature/via Gov’t of BC
The ER shutdowns at the Nicola Valley Hospital, as well as in other communities such as 100 Mile House and Clearwater, aren’t a huge surprise, with Goetz noting that IHA executives did warn that the hospital would be facing a series of summer shutdowns.
“It’d be like me saying to you, ‘Oh by the way, you’re gonna get hit by a car next Wednesday, you know, be prepared,'” Goetz argued. “If you know you’re gonna get hit by a car, you’re gonna be looking around, right?”
“If you know these closures are coming, how can you not fill them?” he lamented.
The Nicola Valley Hospital has struggled with chronic staffing shortages for several years, primarily due to a lack of available nurses and physicians.
According to data previously cited by the Mayor, there were 137 emergency room closures across the Interior Health region in 2025, averaging one closure every 2.6 days.
The move by Goetz to try to draw Ottawa’s attention to the issue of ER shutdowns City of Merritt has previously attempted to hold the province financially accountable, invoicing the government for over $103,000 to cover the costs of local firefighters responding to medical emergencies during hospital closures.
When the Nicola Valley Hospital emergency department is shuttered, Interior Health routinely directs patients to access emergency services at Royal Inland Hospital in Kamloops.
