MOUNT FOREST – There were two emergency department closures at Mount Forest’s Louise Marshall Hospital this weekend, but if you weren’t paying attention to Facebook you might not have known.
The first began on Friday, Sept. 6 at 3 p.m. and was overnight until 7 a.m. the following morning. This was announced in a Facebook posting on Friday at 1:46 p.m.
The second closure was for a few hours on Sunday, suddenly announced on Facebook at 10:55 a.m. “effective immediately” with a reopening time of 3 p.m. the same day.
“Both were short notice ED closures that were due to a large number of staff sick call ins,” said Alison Armstrong, hospital spokesperson, in an email.
These closures were not communicated to the media through the usual method of an emailed press release and did not appear to be posted anywhere other than the hospital’s Facebook page.
Armstrong said there is a limited number of admin-on-call staff on weekends and after-hours to handle issues at the three area hospitals which include Groves Memorial Community Hospital and Palmerston and District Hospital which adds to the challenge of communicating short notice closures such as this one.
