Dozens of people attended a rally in Port Hardy, B.C., on Friday afternoon to protest the ongoing overnight closure of an emergency room on the northern tip of Vancouver Island.

Island Health has closed the ER at the Port Hardy Hospital every day at 5 p.m., starting in January 2023, citing a staffing shortage.

"To have an emergency [room] closed after 5 [p.m.] is not acceptable whatsoever," North Island Conservative MLA Anna Kindy told CBC News.

"When we're looking at three years, that becomes, to me, incompetence."

When the Port Hardy ER is closed, patients requiring emergency care are transported to Port McNeill — a 45-kilometre drive along a windy, dark highway dotted with black ice and herds of elk in winter.

Besides it being a treacherous drive, Kindy says the ER in Port McNeill

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