The Winnipeg Regional Health Authority needs to get its story straight and start being honest with the public about how it intends to wind down operations at Misericordia Urgent Care Centre.

Two weeks ago, after the Opposition NDP complained about the possibility of Misericordia shutting down its urgent care centre overnight this summer, the WRHA denied there were any plans to do so.

In fact, the WRHA’s vice-president of inter-professional practice Lori Lamont quickly dismissed the story, saying there was no truth to it and that contingencies would be made to deal with normal staff shortages that occur during the summer months.

But two weeks later, on Friday, the WRHA’s chief medical officer Dr. Brock Wright, announced that in fact Misericordia’s urgent care centre will be shutting down overnight beginning July 5.

What changed between June 9 and June 23? Nothing. The WRHA says within the first four weeks after they announced their hospital reorganization plan in April – which includes the closure of Misericordia’s urgent care centre in October – there has been a reduction of patient traffic of “up to” 12%. Well, they would have known that two weeks ago, so no change there. Besides, what does “up to” mean? Why can’t they release the real number? Is it down 5% some days, 10% others and 12% once or twice a week?

The public could do without the political spin.

Wright says the number of patients that show up to the urgent care centre dwindles overnight. There’s only about one patient per hour on average that presents there between midnight and 6 am. If that’s true, it makes no sense to stay open and the WRHA would be doing the right thing by shutting it down overnight. It makes you wonder, though, why they stayed open overnight all these years if almost no one was using it during those hours.

It raises other questions too. What the WRHA didn’t say was how many patients Misericordia sees on average between 8 pm and midnight. Starting in July, they will only be open from 7:30 am to 8 pm. So, how many urgent care patients will now have to go elsewhere between 8 pm and midnight? The WRHA didn’t include that in its release.

In fact, the WRHA still hasn’t explained where the majority of patients who normally use Misericordia will go once the place shuts down in October. In all likelihood, many who need to see a physician right away – those who may not have life-threatening conditions but are considered urgent care patients – will go to Health Sciences Centre or St. Boniface Hospital.

And they will wait longer there as those hospitals attend to more serious cases.

According to WRHA annual reports, Misericordia sees on average about 40,000 patients a year. That’s about 109 a day. If six on average are seen between midnight and 6 am, about 103 are seen over an 18-hour period between 6 am and midnight. That’s about one new patient every 10 minutes on average. Some will be able to go elsewhere, like a walk-in clinic or their primary care physician during business hours. But many will have to go to HSC or St. Boniface, adding to what’s expected to be a soaring volume of patients presenting at those facilities once three of the city’s six ERs are shut down.

We still haven’t received a straight answer from the WRHA on how that’s supposed to work. Are people who can’t commute to Victoria or Seven Oaks hospitals – which will be transformed into urgent care centres – supposed to wait multiple hours for care at HSC and St. Boniface?

There may be some merit in the WRHA’s overall hospital organization plan, depending on how well they have it planned out. The jury is still out on that.

But I still can’t see the logic behind shutting down the only urgent care facility in central Winnipeg and forcing those people to seek treatment at one of two increasingly busy tertiary care hospitals. It doesn’t seem to make sense.