Niagara Health, with support from its Board of Directors, is reducing the daily hours of operation for the Urgent Care Centres at its Fort Erie and Port Colborne sites. Effective Wednesday, July 5, the UCCs will be open from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily. Niagara Health says in a release that physician shortages are impeding it’s ability to keep Emergency Departments open across the region. Emergency-trained physicians will be asked to work in EDs to ensure Niagara Health is able to provide care for those with life-threatening conditions. Other staff will be given opportunities to work in roles across NH. Niagara Health says that it’s staffing challenges are so serious that it’s ED physician group has warned us about our ability to properly staff EDs with emergency-trained physicians and nurses. From June to August alone, our EDs are short 274 physician shifts.
Niagara Health says it sees an average of one patient every three hours at night at the UCCs and most patients, approximately 75%, currently arrive between 10 a.m. and 10 p.m. Given these statistics, working with our ED physician team, Niagara Health has found that the absolute least impactful way to begin tackling this is to reduce late night and early morning coverage in the Fort Erie and Port Colborne UCCs. It adds that UCCs are not EDs, and Niagara Health is one of the few hospitals in Ontario that still operates them. Even with this reduction in hours, they may not be able to cover all shifts going into the summer months – meaning nurses and doctors will still be stretched thin, and it’s priority must be emergency and acute care. It concludes by saying the change will allow Niagara Health to keep EDs in Welland, Niagara Falls and St. Catharines operational.
