Peace Arch Hospital in White Rock is set for its seventh maternity diversion since December.
The diversions have been happening at both Peace Arch and Ridge Meadows Hospital in Maple Ridge since December of last year, due to a temporary shortage of obstetrician-gynecologists, according to Fraser Health, meaning expecting parents who had planned to give birth at these hospitals may be guided to another maternity site to deliver their baby.
Provincial Health Minister Josie Osborne, who was in Surrey late last month to announce a new urgent and primary care facility, declined to say whether the diversions constitute a crisis in the province’s health-care system.
Osborne could not say how much longer the diversions at both hospitals will continue.
“I know that Fraser Health is working really hard to be able to fill those gaps and, again, working with the physician groups and doing everything they can to attract locums and and fill those gaps.”
The Fraser Health website called the timing of potential future maternity diversions “dynamic” as the health authority collaborates with its physician group to “proactively address staffing gaps.”
Maternity diversions at Peace Arch Hospital since Dec. 7, 2025 include:
• Dec. 7 to 10, 2025
• Dec. 22 to 25, 2025
• Dec. 29, 2025, to Jan. 1, 2026
• Jan. 8 to Jan. 12, 2026
• Jan. 22 to Jan. 26, 2026
• Feb. 5 to Feb. 10, 2026
• Feb. 19 to Feb. 25, 2026