The Mayor of Merritt is frustrated after another 13-hour Emergency Room closure at the Nicola Valley Hospital last night.

In a last-minute decision Wednesday evening, Interior Health said the ER in Merritt would be closed until 8 a.m. today, July 13, due to “limited nursing availability.”

Mayor Mike Goetz tells Radio NL the nurse who was supposed to be filling the vacant shift was re-routed at the last minute.

“The nurse they were sending over to us I believe was either from the Okanagan or the Kootenays was rerouted to Revelstoke because of the accident on the Trans-Canada Highway,” Goetz said.

“[It is] absolutely the most bizarre thing I’ve ever heard; a community that is six, seven hours away from us is affecting how our hospital stays open.”

An exasperated Goetz said he feels B.C.’s healthcare system does not only disrespect the care of people in the Nicola Valley but also puts the workers at risk.

“They are driving around the countryside like Caine Grasshopper back in the Kung Fu days where he wandered around the country helping everybody out and then disappeared into the sunset,” Goetz said. “This is no way to run a health system. It’s absolutely archaic.”

While Goetz says it goes to show the dedication nurses and doctors have, by getting into a car and driving to wherever they are needed, he stresses it should not have to be that way.

“We have an OCP, a five-year plan, a 10-year plan, a strategic plan; we have to have those things [but] this government doesn’t even have a plan to get to next weekend on any of their health care services,” he said.

He says the province needs to abolish centralization of the healthcare system, and instead have hospitals run locally by administrators.

“Centralization has been a disaster, that’s why Alberta got rid of it and that’s why we need to get rid of it. This is not working,” Goetz said. “It is not fair to the people who pay taxes in the province to have care like this. It is disgusting.”

Goetz is calling for immediate action from the province to make changes to address the crumbling healthcare system.