White Rock’s Peace Arch Hospital is set for another maternity diversion — its eighth since December, and fifth diversion in 2026.
The latest ‘temporary’ diversion is set to start this Thursday, March 12 at 8 a.m. and last nearly a week, until 8 a.m. on Wednesday, March 18.
Maternity 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 babies.
Provincial Health Minister Josie Osborne, who was in Surrey earlier this year 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.
She also 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.”
In the B.C. legislature in Victoria last month, Conservative Surrey-White Rock MLA Trevor Halford blasted Osborne and the NDP government about the ongoing ‘temporary’ closures.
“My question to the premier, to this government, is a direct one: Why has the government failed to keep the doors of these maternity wards — whether it’s Peace Arch Hospital or Maple Ridge — why has this government failed mothers, and why does it continue to do so?”
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
• March 12 to March 18, 2026