Lambton residents who need emergency general surgery over the next week may have to go to a hospital outside the county.

Bluewater Health officials said in a news release Thursday general surgery services at the hospital will be closed until Jan. 2 because of a shortage of general surgeons says Dr. Michel Haddad, Bluewater Health’s Chief of Staff.

“We’ve always had five and because we had enough people, we would back up the ER for any emergency issues all the time, 100 per cent.

“In September, October, November, we had three of our five surgeons decide to either retire or move; one moved to GTA and one moved closer to London … which put a lot of pressure our other two (general surgeons) to handle the service. They’re doing their best to cover aside from their own patients.

“We knew about this for the last two, three months, and we’ve been covering the schedule, and the public didn’t notice by bringing in locums from elsewhere; Christmas was covered by a general surgeon from Sudbury, for example,” Haddad says.

“It just happened that over New Years, this week we had no locum, no coverage. Nobody was able to come.”

Haddad says people who need urgent abdominal surgeries, for issues such as appendectomies, inflamed gall bladders, and pancreatitis may be transferred to another hospital.

“If you’re sick, come to the ER and we’ll decide if we can treat you locally, great, if we have to send you out, don’t be shocked.”

Meantime; Haddad says the hospital is working hard to attract new physicians. “We’re in contact with all the training programs in Canada, East West and into the US as well. And we’re in discussion with many surgeons who are sort of looking at our city and say, ‘oh, you know, maybe we’ll go to Sarnia.’ And we’re actually discussing with about five of them, but no one has committed yet to move here. So it’s an ongoing process.

“It just (attracting) three at the same time, it’s very difficult.”