After years of challenges and the crippling impacts of three years of the COVID-19 pandemic, healthcare across Canada is looking pretty bleaks these days.

Mounting costs, ageing facilities and major staff shortages have lead to unprecedented closures and delays, which has many worried, especially in rural, northern communities. Staff shortages means hospitals and clinics don’t have the capacity to support a growing number of patients, even declining services in come cases, which we’ve come to rely on as a first world country with a publicly run healthcare system.

Here in the Bulkley Valley, and other areas throughout the Northern Health region, services are being interrupted, from emergency services to maternity. And if you’re 8 months pregnant, that can add a lot of unneeded stress, not knowing if you’ll have the doctor and nurses available to safely deliver your newborn close to home, possibly having to deliver in the emergency room, or having to drive more than a 2 or 4 hour away.

According to several expecting mothers in the Bulkley Valley, that’s the reality, after they were recently told that they may have to deliver in the emergency room at the BV Hospital, if the maternity ward isn’t properly staffed after 7pm, or they may need to drive to Terrace or Prince George to deliver there baby’s, due to the staffing shortages.

Although Northern Health Services or a representative from the provincial government was not available for this broadcast we will bring you their response in the coming days.

Today we’ll hear from expecting mothers and local businesswomen Jen Mio and Emilie Schmit who are nearing 38 weeks and are uncertain as to where exactly they’ll give birth, something they feel needs immediate action from the government of BC.

I caught up with them in front of the offices for the Minister of Water, Land and Resource Stewardship and Minister Responsible for Fisheries and MLA for Stikine Nathan Cullen, in downtown Smithers where they were delivering a letter to the minister calling on the provincial government for help and support.