Windsor Regional Hospital's Paediatric Diversion Clinic is proving to be successful.
The clinic first opened in September 2023 for three days a week, but then expanded to seven days a week in March 2024.
The paediatric clinic continues to see success by keeping children out of the emergency department, and ensuring they're seen by a doctor quickly.
Between April 1 and August 1 of this year, the clinic has seen approximately 1,100 children, which is 75 patients more than the same time period in 2024.
The average wait time for a child to see a doctor is around 30 minutes, with patients being discharged after two hours, on average.
Karen Riddell, acting president and CEO at Windsor Regional Hospital, says the clinic helps shorten emergency department wait times for all.
"It's been a really effective clinic, but more importantly really to get kids seen, treated, and back home. So I think it's been very well received by the community, we get a lot of positive feedback from the families that are accessing those services, and of course it does lighten up the waiting room in the emergency department so we can focus on the adult patients, and getting them in quicker as well."
She says it's actually good to see a bump in the amount of people using the clinic.
"As the word gets out, and people that have used it before typically will reuse it if they need it for their kids. I think anybody that's got small children knows what it's like, you pick them up after school or daycare, it's 3 o'clock, there's no clinics open, and your only options would normally be sitting in the emergency department waiting room with everybody else that's sitting in the emergency department... so it's nice to have that option."
Riddell says this highly benefits the paediatric population.
"Many of them of course they don't require admission, they have an acute illness that needs to be diagnosed and treated, but they are not necessarily acute enough to be admitted. So, that's a great population that normally if you had urgent care, or you had an after-hours option in the community, they would be perfectly able to be treated in that kind of venue as well but because it's not offered, we're offering that in the hospital."
The clinic is for patients under the age of 17 triaged in the emergency department who meet specific clinical criteria.
The clinic operates on the third floor of Met Campus and are open daily from 3 p.m. to 11 p.m.