Southern Health has announced that the emergency room at Ste. Anne Hospital will soon resume 24 hour service, seven days a week. Service was reduced one year ago to 12 hours per day due to a shortage of doctors. Dr. Denis Fortier, Vice-President of Medical Services for Southern Health, says they have now filled those physician vacancies.

"The good news is, we are now in a position in Ste. Anne where we do have a full complement of physicians with the skills required to maintain an emergency room. So now, we are looking at the entire emergency department program, which is more than just physicians. It's nurses, it's processes and policies and stuff. We're just looking at all of that to ensure that we have a sustainable, excellent program that starts up when it does start up."

How long does Fortier expect this ramping up process to take?

"Our next step is gathering the troops, physicians, nursing staff and administrative staff at Ste. Anne Hospital and working out how that actually happens. It's not just about, okay, tomorrow we start. Let's plan this start-up. You want to do it well and everyone is busy, so I think we're looking at a couple of months."

Dr. Fortier says the number of doctors in Ste. Anne dropped to four last year and that's when they cut back the hours of the ER. He adds they are now back to seven doctors.

"We think that is a sustainable number. More is always better, but seven is a sustainable number."