Windsor Regional Hospital closes Met Campus COVID-19 assessment centre

Friday was the last day of testing at Windsor Regional Hospital’s Met Campus COVID-19 assessment centre. The site is being closed due to lower demand and need to preserve human resources for vaccination efforts, WRH said.

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Fewer local people seeking testing is being cited as the reason for Windsor Regional Hospital’s decision to close the COVID-19 assessment centre at its Met Campus.

According to WRH, there have been “consistently lower volumes of individuals seeking tests,” and the centre’s hours of operation had already been adjusted “to preserve human resources.”

“The Met Campus COVID-19 assessment centre will close after its final scheduled tests (Friday),” Windsor Regional Hospital said in a public statement.

“Individuals scheduled for tests at the Met site are being contacted to reschedule appointments to the Ouellette Campus COVID-19 assessment centre.”

Located at 1995 Lens Ave., the Met Campus assessment centre opened on Dec. 8 to meet the demand for COVID-19 testing from the general public.

At the time, the centre was the third such site in the region, coming after establishment of assessment centres at Windsor Regional Hospital’s Ouellette Campus and at Erie Shores HealthCare in Leamington.

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WRH said the Ouellette Campus assessment centre alone can test as many as 500 people daily. But current data shows that the Met Campus and Ouellette Campus locations combined are testing less than 400 people daily.

Windsor Regional Hospital’s daily testing numbers haven’t been above 500 people since Jan. 18.

“The closure of the Met Campus COVID-19 assessment centre allows WRH to adjust staffing to support the vaccination rollout process,” WRH stated.

Hours of operation for the Ouellette Campus assessment centre will remain the same: 8 a.m. to 7 p.m., seven days a week.

Windsor Regional Hospital anticipates that same-day and next-day testing appointments will remain available despite the closure of the Met Campus assessment centre.

To schedule a COVID-19 test, visit www.wrh.on.ca/onlinebooking.

The Windsor-Essex County Health Unit reported an increase of 39 cases to the region’s COVID-19 case count on Friday.

To date, there have been 13,338 confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus in Windsor-Essex.

12,646 cases have been resolved.

There are currently 296 active cases in the region, with 35 in hospital, and eight under intensive care.

The health unit also reported a new local COVID-19 death on Friday. The deceased was described as a woman in her 70s who lived in the community.

A total of 396 people in Windsor-Essex have died due to COVID-19 thus far.

Vaccination efforts continue. The health unit reported that 13,395 people in Windsor-Essex have received their first dose of vaccine, as of Friday.

11,818 people in the region have received their required two doses of vaccine.

The health unit is currently monitoring 14 outbreaks in the region.