The mayor of Ashcroft says the village is hoping to address a bigger issue relating to temporary closures at the hospital’s emergency department.

The ER at the Ashcroft Hospital will be closed for eight hours Sunday night due to a temporary staffing shortage. The emergency room there is open only on weekends and this will be the fourth short-term closure in the past seven months.

Barbara Roden says economic growth would help bring healthcare professionals to town.

“That would be the ideal solution, is to create more opportunities in Ashcroft for jobs. Whether it’s a hotel, whether it’s more businesses. That would make the community more attractive to healthcare professionals of all kinds. Not just doctors but registered nurses, lab technicians, x-ray technicians. All the people who you need to keep an emergency department going.”

Roden says during an ER closure people need to travel more than an hour to the closest hospital if they need emergency care.

“Whether it’s a small emergency, like a young child who maybe needs stitches… The frustration I think is the distance that we are from the nearest emergency department,” Roden says. “Whether it’s Lillooet, Merritt, Kamloops, 100 Mile. Especially at that time of year when things happen, when it overnight roads could be bad, it’s dark.”