WINGHAM – Karl Ellis, Executive CEO of the Listowel Wingham Hospitals Alliance (LWHA) assured the Advance Times in an email on Dec. 14 that vacant shifts in the Wingham hospital’s emergency department have been filled and the potential closure as a result of not having physician coverage has been avoided.
Physician coverage was identified as an issue for the department over the upcoming holiday period. Due to the extreme variability of emergency room visits over the holidays, these dates include some of the historically lowest days of the year for visits and also some of the highest.
The provincial Emergency Department Locum Program, an agency that supplies physicians for locum coverage has been experiencing unprecedented demand for physicians and a very low supply of available doctors so LWHA had to look elsewhere to fill the shifts.
