Ugent Care Clinic shutting down on Sundays

The facility, which has been providing urgent and emergency health care seven days a week since September 1994, is being forced to change its hours of operation because of a doctor shortage. “Unfortunately, the impact of the serious shortage of physicians in the province has come to bear on the functioning of this facility,” said Marion Moritz, executive director of the clinic. “Strong competing incentives in the current climate have made it very difficult to recruit and retain new physicians.”

She indicated that at least six doctors at the clinic have left for other practice settings. “Given the commitment that the physicians of the clinic have made to the Orléans community, this was not an easy decision,” clinic board chair Dr. Wayne Nimigan said in a release. “We have struggled with [this decision] for over a year as we hoped a recruiting effort would replenish our numbers. “We are now at the point where we have too few doctors to cover our traditional hours of operation,” he continued. “Should the situation improve, Sunday closures would be revisited, but as things stand we are not sure that even this reduction will make our schedule sustainable over the long term.”

Effective June 1, the Orléans Urgent Care Clinic will be open Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. and on Saturdays from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. The clinic will be closed on all statutory holidays and Sundays. For more on this story, please see the May 6 edition of The Star.