The seasonal care clinic outside the Chatham site of the Chatham-Kent Health Alliance is working as advertised.
Caen Suni, vice-president of clinical programs and operations at CKHA, said between the clinic’s opening Nov. 22 and Jan. 28, the care trailer had seen 763 patients.
The clinic is a mobile unit run in conjunction with Chatham-Kent EMS and sits adjacent to the emergency department. It has been designed to improve flow for the emergency department and reduce wait times for those with a seasonal illness, such as colds, flu, Covid or RSV.
Suni said prior to the clinic, typical Emergency Department wait times for those with symptoms of such ailments were anywhere from 3.5 to seven hours.
“At the clinic, the turnaround time from the point of registration to having been seen is 30 to 45 minutes,” Suni said. “We’ve been saving thousands of hours of staff and patient time.”
He added that public feedback has been overwhelmingly positive.
The clinic is slated to be in operation to the end of February, unless there’s a spike in seasonal illnesses.
“It looks like seasonal illnesses so far have peaked in the last week of December and the first week of January,” he said.
However, if there is a spike, then CKHA and EMS would have to “work to respond to the community’s needs.”
