Windsor Regional Hospital is looking add more staff at its PUMA Clinic due to high demand.
The Paediatric Urgent Medical Assessment Clinic has received over 700 patients since it opened on Aug. 31.
Chief Nursing Executive at Windsor Regional Hospital, Karen Riddell, says they're getting 60 appointments a day but they're hoping to add additional appointments sometime next week once they get more staff members hired and trained to work in the clinic.
The hospital reports as of Tuesday, 35.7 per cent of the patients involve children between the ages of 0 and 3, children between the ages of 4 and 9 have made up 38.15 per cent of the visits, while 26.15 per cent of visits have involved youth between the ages of 10 and 17.
Riddell, says they were expecting the clinic to be busy the first few days after it opened and then level out.
"With the schools being back in and seeing the number of cohorts being dismissed from the schools, of course that's increased the demand for testing," she says, "We're actually working to increase our capacity at the clinic already and we thought that might be a few weeks out."
Riddell points out that there are other options if people are having trouble getting an appointment, especially if it's for testing directed by the Windsor-Essex County Health Unit as part of a school cohort.
"If you child doesn't require an exam by a physician or is having mild symptoms, we do have MedLabs of Windsor that has four different locations in Tecumeh, Windsor and LaSalle that is available for symptomatic testing and can see children as well," she says.
Riddell also wants to remind everyone, the clinic is by appointment only.
"No walk-ins because we are full appointment-wise. We are trying to minimize the number of people that are in the clinic at any one time and maintain social distancing. So it is appointment-based only at this point," she adds.
The PUMA clinic is operating out of the hospital's former Met Campus COVID-19 Assessment Centre and is designed to treat children under the age of 17 by offering COVID-19 testing and urgent care medical assessment based on potential COVID-19 symptoms.
The clinic is open seven days a week from 12 p.m. to 8 p.m.
To book an appointment online visit wrh.on.ca/COVID19AssessmentCentre
You can also book an appointment by calling 519-973-4443.
Phones are answered Monday - Friday, between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m.