Hotel-Dieu Grace Healthcare and the Windsor-Essex County branch of the Canadian Mental Health Association (CMHA) have teamed up to offer an Urgent Care Centre for people with mental health issues.
Vice President of Mental Health Addictions at Hotel-Dieu Grace Healthcare Sonja Grbevski says the centre is about diverting people with mental health issues, who normally go to the emergency room, away from the hospital.
"If it is a really critical situation where an individual is at risk to themselves or anyone else or is experiencing psychotic type features or requires a safe stabilization around medication management, we would still urge those individuals to go to the emergency department,” she says.
According to Grbevski, many people are afraid to go to the hospital now because of COVID-19, but they still need help.
"[There is] an opportunity here for us to look at the diversion of having individuals present in the emergency department especially during COVID-19 and we don't want more individuals exposed in that type of environment."
The Urgent Care Centre opened Thursday at the CMHA location at 1400 Windsor Avenue. It is a three-month project in response to COVID-19.
The centre is open Monday, Wednesday and Thursday from 11:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. and Tuesday and Friday from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m..