The maternity unit at White Rock’s Peace Arch Hospital has temporarily closed its doors for the third time in under a month Thursday morning.

From 7 a.m. through Monday, Jan. 12, at 8 a.m., expectant parents will be diverted to another care facility.

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Fraser Health says the diversions are due to an ongoing shortage of OBGYNs. The health authority has been warning of potential shortages across Ridge Meadows and Peach Arch hospitals since early December.

Thursday’s will be the third, and longest closure at Peace Arch Hospital since Dec. 22. Meanwhile, Ridge Meadows Hospital’s maternity unit diverted patients for 96 hours from Dec. 18 to Dec 22.

Dr. Claudine Storness-Bliss, an obstetrician-gynecologist at Surrey Memorial Hospital, tells 1130 NewsRadio that diversions create potential risks to patients.

“Whenever there’s a mismatch of resources and volume, is when we start to see complications that could have been avoided or near misses, or actual misses,” said Storness-Bliss.

She says the change could create confusion with paramedics transporting an emergency gynecology patient — though she hopes it’s been properly communicated to ambulance crews.

“If a patient, for example, arrived in the emergency room when there’s no gynecologist and they have a ruptured ectopic pregnancy, that is a life-threatening event, and they need emergency surgery. That is a problem.”

Storness-Bliss says her example is unlikely to occur, but a non-zero chance is a risk. Meanwhile, she says patients without emergency needs are forced to visit unfamiliar hospitals with unfamiliar staff amid increased demand for care.

“We regularly have patients labouring in our triage area, where they do not have privacy; they do not have adequate pain control. They don’t have what we call one-to-one nursing, meaning each patient has their own nurse, which is the standard of care in labour. They have two nurses that are looking after six, seven, eight patients instead. And so it’s easy to miss problems.”

Storness-Bliss describes the resulting inadequate access to pain control as “cruel.”

Fraser Health says it has recruited six OBGYNs to its hospitals in the region over the past year, and is working to recruit more and address service gaps.

“We are pleased to share that we have hired one physician at Peace Arch Hospital who is expected to join the team in Spring 2026.”

The health authority says the timing of future diversions is “dynamic” and may be announced on short notice in reaction to unexpected absences or doctors calling in sick.

Throughout 2025, the B.C. Ministry of Health shared its progress in recruiting more health-care workers to all fields and regions of the province.

Acting as the BC Conservatives’ critic for health, MLA for North Island Anna Kindy says the diversion is “unacceptable” and evidence of a government that only reacts to- instead of planning to avoid crises.

Kindy says recruitment efforts are a good start, but the province needs to do more to retain health-care workers.

Storness-Bliss says it only takes looking at the outcomes to see the province has not worked hard enough.

“Are patients waiting shorter times to have surgery? No. Are patients receiving adequate care 100 per cent of the time on our labour delivery ward? Absolutely not. And it’s a problem. And I think that the issue is that there’s very little communication and listening to the people that are on the front lines, who have great suggestions, who can think outside the box — and there is no urgency to act,” she said.

“The system is broken. It’s obvious the system is not working and needs a major rehaul. And we need a minister and a government that has the audacity almost to make all those changes that we need.”

—With files from Greg Bowman