OB/GYN shortage in B.C. threatens collapse in local maternity care

Months before Danielle Goward’s due date, doctors informed her that she would be transferred to another hospital to deliver her twin girls. Her higher-risk pregnancy, they said, required more specialized services than were available at the local hospital in Williams Lake, in B.C.’s interior.

Ms. Goward and her husband accepted the plan as a small inconvenience and figured that when the time came this spring, they would be transferred to Kamloops, or possibly Vancouver. Instead, a shortage of maternity care doctors in B.C. saw Ms. Goward shuffled through four hospitals in 12 days – in Williams Lake, Kelowna, Prince George and Kamloops. The transfer process involved three flights for the flustered first-time mother, who called the experience “terrifying.”

“We thought it would be a minor bump, but it ended up being absolutely insane,” Ms. Goward said in an interview.