An ambulance arrives at the Kelowna General Hospital ER.
Image Credit: SUBMITTED/KGH Foundation
July 20, 2025 - 7:00 PM
The partial reopening of Kelowna General Hospital's pediatric unit doesn’t inspire confidence for a Kelowna MLA.
Kelowna-Mission MLA Gavin Dew has been a loud critic of Interior Health over the past several weeks during the pediatric closure. IH has addressed that issue but around the corner, emergency room service interruptions are still commonplace around the region. He said the push for change can’t lose momentum on one issue.
Some services at the 10-bed pediatric unit at KGH were restored on July 13 after it was closed May 26. Since the reopening was announced on July 10, there have been seven temporary emergency room service interruptions in the IH region.
“It's a partial reopening and that's good but there's a lot more work to do in order to fully restore service and also to fully restore public confidence in the system which has been shaken quite badly by what's played out over the last couple of months,” Dew said.
South Okanagan General Hospital, Lillooet Hospital, South Similkameen Health Centre and Dr. Helmcken Memorial Hospital have all seen closures.
“The closure of the pediatric ward was very much a canary in a coal mine that drew attention to the brokenness of the system and the brokenness of the culture. But a partial solution to the pediatric closure is in no way a total resolution of the major endemic problems that continue to plague Interior Health under the current leadership regime and under the current minister,” he said.
Earlier this year, Interior Health stopped giving specific reasons for why individual emergency rooms are having service interruptions.
Dew said MLAs have been trying to get an update from Interior Health about the ongoing issues and have received silence.
“We requested that five weeks ago. We've followed up. We have not heard back from the minister's office through which we made that request as to whether they will in fact provide us with regular briefings on the situation,” he said. “We are still learning about what's happening by the media and by informal information and rumours.”
Interior Health has a new interim CEO while the board of directors searches for a permanent replacement for Susan Brown, but Dew thinks the new leadership might just bring more of the same.
“What worries me is that the same people who oversaw the system and who insisted that the outgoing CEO would not leave are in charge of hiring the new CEO. So what I don't want to see is a continuation of the same regime, the same thinking, the same culture, the same insularity under a new CEO who comes from within that bunker that has given us the crisis we face in Interior Health,” he said.
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