The Interlake-Eastern Regional Health Authority encourages anyone travelling for the holidays to be aware of access to emergency care and the location of the nearest hospital.

Services in some emergency departments may be temporarily unavailable or delayed due to a doctor not being on site.

CEO Ron Van Denakker says emergency room schedules are now available online and via toll-free telephone, because of public feedback tied to the ongoing doctor shortage in the region.

"We have worked with our doctors and hospital emergency department teams to make these available publicly,” Van Denakker says. "We continue to recruit doctors to our region to deliver emergency department care and we are anticipating more doctors coming to our region in 2017."

If people come to an ED without a doctor on-site, Van Denakker says nurses there can provide assessment and communicate health care options.

Doctor availability in IERHA emergency departments are listed at www.ierha.ca. They can be heard at 1-866-267-5818.