One of Hamilton’s urgent care clinics returned to normal hours on Wednesday after redeploying staff amid the recent COVID-19 surge fuelled by the Omicron variant.
St. Joseph’s Healthcare Hamilton’s Urgent Care Centre on King Street East will once again operate between 8 a.m. and 10 p.m. daily.
The facility had been only operating late afternoon and evening since mid-January after staff were shifted to other parts of the network to maintain essential and critical services.
“We are very thankful for the patience of the Hamilton community through the past three weeks, and pleased to be able to provide full urgent care services once again,” said Dr. Greg Rutledge, deputy chief of staff and chief of emergency medicine.
A pair of emergency-trained physicians, nine nurses (part-time and full-time) and clerks were affected by the decision.
It was the second move from one of Hamilton’s major hospital networks to redeploy much need staff.
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In January, Hamilton Health Sciences (HHS) shuttered its West End Urgent Care Clinic on Main Street East at Macklin Street South for eight weeks. It’s still closed as of Wednesday.
Five HHS emergency-trained physicians, 10 nurses and other staff (clerks, environmental aides, etc.) were redeployed to emergency departments (EDs) and other high-priority facilities.
Earlier this week, execs from the two hospital networks said facilities are not quite ready to resume non-urgent surgeries due to ongoing pressures from the current COVID-19 wave fuelled by the Omicron variant.
Hamilton Health Sciences president Rob MacIsaac didn’t alter the sentiment conveyed in a release last week that claimed high occupancy rates and patient transfers continue to plague the city and put a strain on the system.
“Hospitals in Hamilton will proceed cautiously with ramp-up plans, although frankly I can’t see ramping up happening in a significant way for at least a few weeks,” MacIsaac said in city-led pandemic update on Feb. 7.
“We need to be confident that we can maintain access to urgent and emergent services.”
About 130 COVID-19 patients are in city hospitals with 24 in ICUs as of Wednesday. The networks have transferred 31 people to other facilities locally and across Ontario over the last month.
HHS’s overall acute funded occupancy is at 124 per cent at the Juravinski and 105 per cent at the General as of Wednesday morning.
St. Joe’s is caring for about 46 COVID-19 patients as of Feb. 9 with nine in ICUs.
The recent ramp down in surgical procedures during the onset of the Omicron wave helped with opening up more spaces for those in dire need and in manpower allowing for the redeployment of staffers.
“This is why we also reduced the hours at our (east end) urgent care centre. It was for us to pull these highly skilled resources into the ICU and onto our medicine platform to and into the EDs,” Farrell said.
Farrell says St. Joe’s as of Monday is operating at its threshold of 64 per cent of overall surgical activity to maintain access to urgent and emergent care.
Last week, HHS reported it was at 53 per cent of pre-pandemic volumes — below the minimum rate of 75 per cent.
MacIssac said at present, the network is “barely meeting” requirements of performing urgent and emergent surgeries.
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