It's the first time in at least 30 years that Whitehorse General Hospital has had to transfer patients to another community because of overcrowding. (CBC)

Some patients from Whitehorse General Hospital have been transferred to another Yukon town because of a bed shortage.

To date, three patients have been transferred from Whitehorse to the hospital in Watson Lake, a town about 360 kilometres southeast of the capital city.

Hospital spokesperson Val Pike told CBC News there were 58 patients and only 49 beds available last week at the Whitehorse facility.

"This scenario may unfold again in the future. This may just be the way things go," Pike said Monday.

"I've been here for 30 years and to my knowledge, this is the first time we've ever had to do a move like this. But I think this may be something we'll have to do from time to time in order to accommodate the needs of Yukoners."

No single reason

Dr. Rao Tadepalli, president of the Yukon Medical Association, said doctors, Whitehorse hospital staff and health officials were called to an emergency meeting on Friday, at which time they were told the hospital was full and something needed to be done.

Tadepalli said there was no single reason why the hospital was packed, but he said several factors were involved.

For one, a number of patients had been booked in for knee surgery on Monday. Tadepalli said some of them had been waiting for upwards of two years and were not going to be turned away.

As well, Tadepalli said people in long-term care have been kept in the hospital while they wait for beds to open at the Thomson Centre.

"Once we have people of long-term care waiting in the hospital, then acute care gets held up. If acute care gets held up, then the emergency room gets backed up," he said.

"Really, we don't want our nurses to burn out. I mean, they are at overcapacity. So what will we do?"

Affected patients 'accommodating'

Tadepalli said in the current case, officials decided to transfer some patients who are in stable condition to the Watson Lake hospital — a decision that he anticipated is not sitting well with those patients' loved ones in Whitehorse.

But Pike said affected patients and their families are taking the hospital's "very difficult position" in stride.

"We sat down with our medical social worker and the doctor and the families and the patients and explained to them our situation and offered them the opportunity to go to Watson Lake for hopefully not a long time," she said.

"We're looking at maybe 14 days just to get us through this crunch, and patients and families were incredibly accommodating."