The Paediatric Diversion Program at Windsor Regional Hospital continues to see success after over a year in operation.
The program opened in September 2023 for three days a week, before seeing expansion in March 2024 to seven days a week.
Since the program opened, the paediatric clinic has seen approximately 3,000 children, with an average of 10 per day.
The program has also seen a significant decrease in emergency room wait times, with those visiting the clinic waiting less than 30 minutes to see a physician, down from a two hour wait prior to the clinic opening.
The clinic is for patients under the age of 17 triaged in the emergency department who meet specific clinical criteria. However, since then the criteria has loosened and only those who need to be seen immediately, or who need to be monitored the entire time will remain in the emergency department.
Dr. Sajit Augustine, Chief of Paediatrics at Windsor Regional Hospital, says the clinic sees approximately 10 patients per day.
"For the last one year when we look back, we found that we saw close to 3,000 patients since last September, which practically counts for one-third of all children that we see in the emergency room."
He says they've seen drastic improvements in wait times.
"For a child who comes during these hours to be seen by an emergency physician the wait time is less than 30 minutes. So, the numbers have dramatically come down, I think prior to this clinic the wait time was close to two hours."
He says the clinic works closely with the emergency department.
"We have recalibrated our criteria that should be met to be seen in the clinic. We have loosened some of the initial criteria that we had when we launched the clinic, certainly that has helped to bolster the numbers that we see right now."
Augustine says the hospital continues to have conversations with the Ministry of Health to see if funding is available to expand the current hours even further.
The clinic operates on the third floor of Met Campus and are open daily from 3 p.m. to 11 p.m.
