It’s becoming an all too familiar story in Nova Scotia; hospital emergency rooms closed, because there aren’t enough doctors to staff them.

The mayor of Shelburne, N.S. says she learned this morning that the local emergency room would be closed for much of the next five days.

“It’s not okay. We’re talking about people’s lives and it’s terrifying for some,” says Shelburne mayor Karen Mattatall. “We can’t plan when we become ill, and certainly over the Holidays, Christmas in particular, you have people travelling which increases the opportunity for accidents.”

Mattatall says the closest open emergency room is 100 kilometres away.

“It’s terrifying to live in a community where you don’t have access to the services,” adds Mattatall.

Shelburne’s E.R. is not alone. Eight emergency department’s will be closed at various times over the Holidays; Glace Bay, Eastern Shore, All Saints Springhill, South Cumberland, North Cumberland, Lillian Fraser Memorial, Roseway Hospital and Musquodoboit Valley Memorial Hospital.

A report released yesterday shows ER’s were closed more than 30,000 hours last year. Unscheduled closures went from just over 5,400 hours in 2016/17 to over 12,500 hours in 2017/18.

“There’s an increase there of 132%,” says N.S. NDP leader Gary Burrill. “We’re not talking about a marginal increase, or a slow pattern of increase, we’re talking about a major dramatic change in the whole set up of the picture of the function of emergency rooms of the province.

The N.S. Health Authority and Health Minister Randy Delorey says emergency care never shuts down, pointing out that Regional Hospitals are always open.

Dr. Tim Holland of Doctors Nova Scotia says everyone is trying to pitch in, and help cover areas of need.

“I work at Truro, one of the regional centres for Colchester, but as well there’s the Regional Centre in Amherst that’s very close to us, and we often see physicians from my emergency department in Truro having to go up to Amherst to cover shifts,” says Holland.

There have been some changes to try and stabilize hours.

The emergency room at Lillian Fraser Memorial cut their operating hours from 12 hours-a-day to 8 hours-a-day. Since that change, there have been fewer closures.

Delorey also said he’s installed emergency shift premiums, and other incentives to fill shifts.

But there are still a lot of positions that remain unfilled. As of October 31, the N.S. Health Authority recruited 89 doctors, but there are still 161.5 vacancies remaining.

“We do need to pay attention to these retention and recruitment issues, and look at other ways that we can be more efficient with the resources we have,” says Dr. Tim Holland.

Dr. Holland says he does feel optimistic about what 2019 could bring for the system.

With files from CTV Atlantic’s Laura Brown.