Photo: Interior Health

Interior Health officials on Wednesday said that an ongoing doctor shortage has resulted in a decision to close the hospital’s 10 bed inpatient general pediatrics unit as of May 26, continuing on until at least July 4.

Pediatric care services will be curtailed at Kelowna General Hospital for an extended period, starting later this month.

Interior Health officials on Wednesday said that an ongoing doctor shortage has resulted in a decision to close the hospital’s 10-bed inpatient general pediatrics unit as of May 26, continuing for at least six weeks. There are currently six children in the soon-to-be-closed unit and they will stay-put until they no longer need care.

No new admissions will be allowed as the hospital contends with the staffing issues.

“Unfortunately, we are more than 60 per cent short in the pediatric group at Kelowna General Hospital, and this has been a longstanding problem,” Dr. Hussam Azzam, executive medical director in community and maternity care, said.

“Something needed to be done to maintain safe, appropriate care for the population, but also to protect the remaining pediatric physicians that we have.”

Burnout, he said, is an ongoing risk for doctors who have been “over-committed” and working longer hours for months to fill gaps.

Currently the hospital has funding for 12 pediatric physicians, though it only has six. They run the 10-unit general pediatric unit and the 14-bed neonatal intensive care unit.

“We were relying on locums coming from within Interior Health, within the province, and even from outside, from Alberta, Saskatchewan, to help us,” he said.

“We do have, with the support of the Ministry of Health, a very reasonable, generous remuneration package for locums. However, it's just become unsustainable to do that for the long term, particularly in May, June and early July.”

There are more than 100 pediatrics shifts in that time period that are uncovered, which prompted the decision to close the unit.

With its temporary shutdown, the limited pool of pediatricians will be reassigned to support the neonatal intensive care unit and high-risk deliveries.

Azzam said critical care services for children, including the emergency department and NICU, will remain open.

Despite the closure, Azzam said the public can rest assured that care levels will be upheld.

“For the general public, nothing should change,” Azzam said.

“They should go directly to KGH emergency, as they do currently, and they will be assessed by the emergency physician appropriately.”

If more longer-duration care is needed, a transfer to another hospital within Interior Health or outside its boundaries will be made. Supports, he said, should be available for families of these children. What that looks like was not specified.

Gavin Dew, MLA for Kelowna Mission, said it's a concerning situation and places the blame on the province.

“As a parent of two young kids myself, it’s scary that families in the Okanagan will be without in-patient pediatric care (in Kelowna) for six weeks," Dew said.

"This is just the latest symptom of a health-care system held together with duct tape. The NDP keeps boasting about hiring doctors, but 40 per cent of GPs plan to retire, net new doctors aren’t keeping up with population growth, and qualified internationally-trained physicians are stuck in limbo. We've heard about ER shutdowns throughout rural B.C.; are we next? Will Vernon and Kelowna be next on the list of hospitals diverting patients?"

He said people deserve "honesty and transparency from this government, not more spin."

Azzam said while this service shortfall is not ideal, or regular, there is a national shortage of physicians, particularly pediatricians, and the health authority is working to address the issue.

“It's one of the groups that's difficult to recruit to however, we have two promising recruits that actually committed. They have signed letters of offer,” he said.

“One should be starting in July... The other person will take a little bit longer, because they are actually an international graduate … so we're hoping this person, the second individual, would join us sometime in early 2026.”

Looking further into the future, Azzam said that there is hope that this will be less of an issue as UBC Okanagan’s residency program bulks up.

“We always say that you teach people where you want them to stay,” he said.

“So we're working with the university on our residency program and teaching programs to make sure that we have more residents in Kelowna and Interior Health in general.”

He said recruiting from residency programs is always challenging when doctors are trained elsewhere. He moved here two years ago and said he can’t understand why everybody wouldn’t want to be in this area.

“It's a great place to live, however, as you know, it's not the cheapest place to live,” he said.