Emergency departments in N.S. still struggling with closures – CBC

As staffing recruitment efforts continue, closure hours mount at some community emergency departments

Jul 21, 2025

On a recent July day at the Digby General Hospital’s emergency department, visitors would have been greeted by a sign no one wants to encounter as they reach the front door: the site was closed. It’s a sign that’s been getting a lot of use lately.

Digby, like many rural health-care facilities around Nova Scotia and across Canada, has staffing problems and those problems cause closures. Right now, the site has just one full-time emergency medicine doctor, with the remaining shifts covered by locums — doctors who travel to the community to fill in.

According to publicly available information, the emergency department in Digby was closed for 518 hours in June, 514 hours in May and 383 hours in April.

For years, closures have been stubbornly difficult to solve at certain sites, but Nancy Whalley is hoping there could be light at the end of the tunnel for Digby.

Read more: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/health-care-emergency-departments-closures-1.7587518