{"id":292306,"date":"2026-02-19T21:21:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-19T21:21:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/292306\/"},"modified":"2026-02-19T21:21:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-19T21:21:09","slug":"b-c-facing-lack-of-obgyns-midwives-and-maternity-nurses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/292306\/","title":{"rendered":"B.C. facing lack of OBGYNs, midwives and maternity nurses"},"content":{"rendered":"

As of 8 a.m. Thursday, the maternity unit at White Rock\u2019s Peace Arch Hospital<\/a> will be closed, again, for four days because of what the Fraser Health Authority (FHA) describes as \u201cunexpected departures.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is the fourth time this year that the hospital has had to deal with a temporary closure. The ward is expected to reopen on Feb. 23 at 8 a.m., meanwhile, patients will be diverted to other health-care facilities.<\/p>\n

This is not just a problem affecting one hospital. There have also been multiple closures of the same unit at Ridge Meadows Hospital over the past couple of months.<\/p>\n

Doctors of BC President Dr. Adam Thompson tells 1130 NewsRadio that people can expect more service gaps at hospitals around the province as B.C. struggles with a major shortage of frontline health-care workers.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a province-wide problem. We\u2019re seeing a shortage of OBGYN providers, but also a shortage of midwives, maternity nurses, as well as family physicians doing less maternity work than they used to. So, there are a number of different challenges that are reaching a point where we\u2019re struggling to provide care in the province, sadly,\u201d said Thompson.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re just not producing enough physicians. Full-stop.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thompson explains that B.C. needs to plan and implement a way to stabilize and end the rolling closures, but that hasn\u2019t happened yet.<\/p>\n

He says one of the biggest obstacles is graduating more doctors.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re just not producing enough physicians. Full-stop. There\u2019s been a problem in producing enough physicians right across Canada for a number of years \u2014 to keep up with an aging population and to keep up with population growth we\u2019ve had. It\u2019s generally not keeping up with the pace of change in society and the pace of change in medicine with physician supply.\u201d<\/p>\n

He acknowledges that maternity ward closures, however temporary, make parents-to-be anxious.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnfortunately, health care problems are not quick-fix solutions. We need stabilization plans in the short to medium term, and longer-term solutions around producing more OBGYN\u2019s and more health-care providers to support the system. Unfortunately, we will see\u2026 more service gaps like this.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thompson hopes for the establishment of a committee of stakeholders, including the provincial government and health-care workers, to address the problem.<\/p>\n

First on the committee\u2019s agenda, he says, would be recruitment and retention.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut also looking at, \u2018How do we increase mobility of providers across the province?\u2019 At the moment, if you are credentialed to work in one health authority, you are not able to work in another health authority unless you have credentials there. We need to move to a system where when you have credentialing in one health authority, it covers you for the whole province.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also important to spread health-care providers around the province, Thompson says, so rural communities aren\u2019t left out.<\/p>\n

He urges patients facing service gaps at their local health-care facility not to hesitate to seek care, even if it means being diverted.<\/p>\n

Thompson says the issue is one of several which Doctors of BC is worried about right now.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re also seeing a specialist waitlist crisis, which needs addressing,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese are not long-term issues; these are here-and-now problems that we would like to see addressed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fraser Health\u2019s website says it has recruited six OBGYNs to hospitals in the region over the past year, and one new physician is expected to join Peace Arch Hospital this spring.<\/p>\n

\u2014With files from Charles Brockman<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As of 8 a.m. Thursday, the maternity unit at White Rock\u2019s Peace Arch Hospital will be closed, again,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":292307,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[134,527,111,139,69],"class_list":{"0":"post-292306","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-healthcare","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-healthcare","10":"tag-new-zealand","11":"tag-newzealand","12":"tag-nz"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292306","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=292306"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292306\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/292307"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=292306"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=292306"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=292306"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}