Adult & Paediatric Respiratory Care Centre
18-11-2022
Effective Monday, November 21, 2022, the COVID-19 clinical assessment centre at Ouellette Campus will see its mandate expanded to allow assessments of both adult and paediatric patients for influenza-like illness (ILI). These changes will help meet rising community demand and ease pressures on area emergency departments.
Hours of operation for the clinic, to be renamed the ADULT AND PAEDIATRIC RESPIRATORY CARE CENTRE will continue to be 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., seven days a week. Patients MUST book an appointment online at wrh.on.ca/OnlineBooking or by calling 519-973-4443. Phones are answered Monday to Friday, between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m. Please have your health card ready. As always, we will continue to monitor demand and expand where necessary and possible.
The changes are being made amid the ongoing COVID-19 burden, an earlier-than-usual influenza season, and a challenging respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) season, especially for children. Collectively, this is resulting in significant strain on the health system, particularly emergency departments and creating staffing challenges across all sectors.
Local primary care providers should continue to be the first option, where possible, for patients seeking assessments for COVID-19 and Influenza-Like Illness. Windsor Regional Hospital (WRH) continues to partner with local primary care providers to support their own respective expansion of service hours and locations where possible.
Please remember that WRH, like most other acute care hospitals in Ontario, is continuing to experience higher than normal patient volumes, which contribute to offload delays for local paramedics and, most importantly, delay our ability to admit patients into our hospital from our emergency departments.
These challenges continue to strain our staff despite having close to 60 more acute care beds today than WRH had prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as some 400 additional front-line clinical staff.
WRH is anticipating additional patient volumes as flu season and any resurgence in COVID-19 cases arise this fall and winter.
We continue to work with our local partners to address recent challenges regarding patient volumes as best we can. In the meantime, patients and families attending our Emergency Department should continue to anticipate longer than normal wait times for non-emergency cases. We also ask that patients and visitors be understanding and considerate of front-line staff who are doing their best to address high patient volumes.
If you are experiencing a critical and/or life-threatening situation, you will be prioritized by Emergency Department staff and seen immediately. We ask that those not experiencing a medical emergency consider consulting with a family physician, visiting a nearby urgent care clinic or walk-in clinic, or call Health Connect Ontario at 811 to speak with a registered nurse (24 hours a day, seven days a week).
Primary Care Options
If you are looking for a family physician or nurse practitioner near you, visit Health Care Connect.
View local walk-in clinic options here, including wait times, locations and hours of operation.
Alternate options include Health Connect Ontario chat online or by phone where a Registered Nurse can take your call 24 hours a day, seven days a week at 1-866-797-000 (TTY: 1-866-797-0007).
The Windsor Family Health Team is currently accepting new patients.
Online resources for parents
If you are looking for information about care for children, including helpful videos about common ailment treatments, a helpful website has been developed called TREKK (Translating Emergency Knowledge for Kids).
Media Release