{"id":745548,"date":"2026-06-18T18:42:15","date_gmt":"2026-06-18T18:42:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/745548\/"},"modified":"2026-06-18T18:42:15","modified_gmt":"2026-06-18T18:42:15","slug":"more-staff-resources-needed-to-get-eastern-p-e-i-hospitals-er-open-7-days-a-week-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/745548\/","title":{"rendered":"More staff, resources needed to get eastern P.E.I. hospital’s ER open 7 days a week again"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Text<\/p>\n

Listen to this article<\/p>\n

Estimated 3 minutes<\/p>\n

The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology. Mispronunciations can occur. We are working with our partners to continually review and improve the results.<\/p>\n

The emergency department at Kings County Memorial Hospital in Montague remains closed on weekends, and officials say a lack of staff and resources means it will be difficult to get it back open seven days a week.<\/p>\n

The eastern P.E.I. hospital’s ER has been closed on weekends since January 2025. <\/p>\n

Tara Roche, the administrator for Community Hospitals East, said there is a desire to get the emergency room open every day, but staff shortages are hurting those efforts.<\/p>\n

She said doctors are the biggest shortfall, but lab staff and registered nurses are also needed. KCMH has been supported by locums, but Roche said that is only a short-term solution.<\/p>\n

“Like any area within health these days, there’s a lot of burnout, there’s a lot of stress,” she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“It really is just about trying to make an environment as healthy as it possibly is, and we’re dedicated to doing that work.”<\/p>\n

\"ATara Roche, the administrator for Community Hospitals East, says staffing shortages are hurting efforts to get KMCH’s emergency department back open seven day a week. (Aaron Adetuyi\/CBC)<\/p>\n

Extending hours is a challenge because many physicians have other commitments, Roche said, and extended hours contribute to burnout.<\/p>\n

“You need to have the staff to be able to do the work, so I have to be able to listen to staff when they’re telling me that they \u2026 need some support or need more resources,” she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“In order to have safe, quality care, all those things need to be in place before I can really look at expanding hours or offering different services.”<\/p>\n

Montague resident Joseph Martell told CBC News the weekend closures are something people in the area have no choice but to “put up with.”<\/p>\n

“I’d like to see a few more doctors in this area, then maybe the emergency could open up more,” he said.<\/p>\n

“I wouldn’t want to have to run to Charlottetown all the time if you had an emergency. But I guess we just have to wait and see what happens.”<\/p>\n

Gordon McNeilly, the P.E.I. Liberal Party’s health critic, wants to see more support for the province\u2019s health-care workers, but said there also needs to be more transparency from Health P.E.I.<\/p>\n

“We’ve got to figure out why we’re having trouble recruiting people to Prince Edward Island in important positions,” he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“It reflects in the KCMH ER and various other places across the province. We need employees to work and stay here, and I want to make sure that they have the best culture possible.”<\/p>\n

\"Man‘I want to make sure that they know that they’re supported on our side and things need to improve,’ Liberal health critic Gord McNeilly says of health-care staff at Kings County Memorial Hospital. (Wayne Thibodeau\/CBC)<\/p>\n

McNeilly said there needs to be assurances that staff are supported before KCMH’s emergency department can reopen seven days a week.<\/p>\n

“There is a lot of support needed for our front-line health-care workers. And with so much change going on, it’s hard for them to get a base,” he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“I want to make sure that they know that they’re supported on our side and things need to improve, and we’re going to keep the government accountable to do that.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to this article Estimated 3 minutes The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":745549,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[49,48,84,392],"class_list":["post-745548","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-health","tag-healthcare"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/745548","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=745548"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/745548\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/745549"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=745548"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=745548"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=745548"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}