Overview
- The ward has been shut since May 26 because staffing fell to 5.5 pediatricians from the recommended 12.
- Emergency room staff are now managing inpatient pediatric cases and have facilitated seven patient transfers since the closure.
- Ambulances are stretched by transporting children to hospitals as far as 300 kilometres away, risking treatment delays.
- This disruption follows province-wide hospital staffing shortages and echoes recent warnings of a growing maternity care crisis at Kelowna General.
- Interior Health plans to add one pediatrician in July and two more in September under a recruitment push led by Health Minister Josie Osborne.