Urgent care centre in Hamilton reducing hours as COVID impacts staffing
Published January 17, 2022 at 3:02 pm
St. Joseph’s Healthcare Hamilton (SJHH) announced it is temporarily reducing the hours of its Urgent Care Centre on King St East.
Effective Jan. 18, operating hours will be between 4 and 10 p.m.
St Joe’s says the move to evening-only hours will enable the urgent redeployment of health care professionals to other high-demand areas of the hospital as the latest wave of COVID-19 takes its toll on workers.
“Two emergency-trained physicians, nine nurses, and clerks will be redeployed to the Charlton campus Emergency Department and other high-priority areas of the hospital,” said SJHH in an official statement.
The health care provider added that the rapid spread of the Omicron variant has affected their workers. Last week the number of staff and physicians in self-isolation reached over 250.
“This measure is necessary to help maintain essential and critical services to our community during this difficult stage of the COVID pandemic,” said Dr. Greg Rutledge, Deputy Chief of Staff and Chief of Emergency Medicine. “Our urgent care team members have a unique set of skills needed to help address critical staffing shortages and high demand for care at our Charlton inpatient site.”
Videos
St. Joe’s says its Intensive Care Unit has been nearly or completely full in recent days.
“Half of the patients in our ICU are COVID-positive, our COVID unit is caring for patients with high levels of needs, and last week the total number of patients in hospital who are positive with COVID-19 ranged around 90-100 daily,” said SJHH.
insauga's Editorial Standards and Policies advertising