More than 4,200 people have turned to Hôtel-Dieu Grace Healthcare’s (HDGH) Mental Health and Addictions Urgent Crisis Centre (MHAUCC) since it expanded to round-the-clock operations a year ago.
Hospital officials say this milestone is easing pressure on emergency departments while giving people in crisis a dedicated place to seek help.
The centre gives people quick access to a multidisciplinary team that includes nurses, social workers, addictions counsellors, and psychiatric support.
The Urgent Crisis Centre, located at 1030 Ouellette Avenue beside Windsor Regional Hospital’s Ouellette Campus, has operated 24 hours a day, seven days a week since July 2025, offering walk-in mental health and addictions crisis care, a crisis phone line, and voluntary drop-offs by police and Essex-Windsor EMS.
Between July 2025 and May 2026, the centre recorded 4,222 visits. During that time, staff completed 713 addictions consultations and scheduled 1,184 psychiatric consultations. 1,145 of all visits occurred overnight between 8 p.m. and 8 a.m., highlighting the demand for after-hours care.
Bill Marra, President and CEO at Hôtel-Dieu Grace Healthcare, says before this expansion, they didn’t have a handle on the numbers.
“We’re pleased with the numbers, but we know we can do more. We know that there are still people presenting in the traditional ER, we know that at times, as many as a third of them are leaving without being seen. We know that Windsor police on average, they were seeing something like eight calls per day that were directly correlated to people in crisis. So we can do better.”
Windsor Police Chief Jason Crowley says this frees up officers as well.
“It’s another tool on the toolbelt... and it’s the tool to be honest. If someone is ready for those supports, we are ready to provide that. So it’s changing the sense of we now have somewhere to take somebody who’s ready for help where we didn’t really have that before to this extent, nowhere near this extent.”
Slawomir Pulcer, Deputy Chief of Professional Standards with Essex-Windsor EMS, says because of this centre, their offload delays are seeing major improvements.
“For those patients that meets the criteria, it does take them away from the emergency department. Our emergency department here at Ouellette Campus, specializes in many things, strokes, traumas, heart attacks. So there’s a lot of competing priorities for the healthcare workers, the physicians, the nurses in that department. So this does provide a great patient pathway for those patients that meet the criteria.”
Kristi Cecile, Clinical Vice President at Windsor Regional Hospital, says having the UCC is crucial for their emergency department, especially during overnight hours.
“We are still working with our emergency department capacity right now. We are over capacity in general. So, we are really working closely and trying to really evolve the program and see those patients get moved over time to MHAUCC as quickly as possible. There is some positive improvements that happened with the emergency department at this time with getting these patients where they need to be seen.”
Hospital officials said 720 patients were referred to the crisis centre from local emergency departments over the first 10 months of 24-hour operations, while EMS brought 192 patients directly to the facility and Windsor Police made 27 voluntary drop-offs.
Another 479 clients were connected with HDGH’s Withdrawal Management Services program.
The service currently operates on about $2-million annually using repurposed funding. While the organization may eventually seek additional provincial funding, the focus remains on increasing public awareness that help is available at any hour.