The Mayor of the District Council of Kimba, Dean Johnson, has called the local hospital's emergency department closure "life-threatening".
The Eyre and Far North Local Health Network made the decision to close the department following a COVID outbreak among nursing staff.
In a statement, the network said: "We will need to temporarily reduce services at Kimba District Hospital so we can continue to provide the best care possible for our aged care residents".
"If you are unwell, please contact Health Direct, your GP or if it is an emergency phone triple-0 or present to the Cleve Hospital."
Mr Johnson said the painful irony was that Kimba did not have a permanent GP to contact in the first place.
"It really leaves our community at risk — not just our community, but anyone travelling through Kimba or on the highway," he said.
"It's a huge risk — I believe we don't have anyone between Port Augusta and Ceduna who can take care of any traffic accidents or any illnesses or major accidents."
Mr Johnson said he had already learnt that the Cleve District Hospital, 45 minutes away, did not have the capacity to give medical assistance to a young person yesterday who was then sent away to Port Augusta — another two hours away.
"As far as I'm concerned, we could pull a couple of nurses out of the city to keep our accident and emergency department open so that everyone can have at least that base level of care."
Mr Johnson said the community, along with the Northern Eyre Peninsula Health Alliance, had been trying to get more medical staff to town for years.
"We need to put decent incentives in place to lure them out of the city and get them to rural areas and put more funding into nursing staff as well," he said.
"We have been actively making representations to the Health Minister at state and federal level.
"And we're firing off letters today to highlight this added risk now that we're losing A and E services as well."
No surge workforce available
President of the Rural Doctor's Association, Peter Rischbieth, said there was a chronic staff shortage across South Australia.
"Unfortunately, there's not a surge workforce as far as nurses, midwives, GPs and hospital doctors in our system," Dr Rischbieth said.
"We've got to try and work out how can we see our patients when they need to be seen, utilise our practice resources and workforces as best we can, and get our vaccination numbers up.
"We've got to try and get on top of this pandemic with good planning, vaccination, and looking after each other and the community with masks."
Mr Johnson said he had never seen the Kimba District Hospital emergency department close.
"Not in living history, I really never remember it being closed at all," he said.
"There have been some minor shutdowns and provisions in place, but I've never seen the A and E closed from what I can remember."
He said he was thankful SA Health had assisted the community with locum doctors, but more needed to be done.
"We're fortunate to have locum doctors, but it's a very expensive model that doesn't give that surety and continuity of care for residents here," Mr Johnson said.
The Eyre and Far North Local Health Network said they would update the community on the reopening of the emergency department as soon as possible.
