The Urgent Care Centre (UCC) at the new Peel Memorial Centre for Health and Wellness Campus (Peel Memorial) will officially open, Wednesday, Feb. 8.

In the coming months, the UCC at 20 Lynch St. will help ease the gridlock at the Emergency Room at the Brampton Civic Hospital (BCH), by treating patients with non life-threatening conditions such as: fractures, flu, laceration, cuts that require stitches, cataract surgery, endoscopy, arthroscopy and minor gynecological procedures that BCH has been shouldering since Peel Memorial Hospital was shut down in 2007.

The new centre will operate from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. and accept patients all year long, seven days/week.

“We have the equipment and human resources here at UCC to deal with anything that walks in,” observed Dr. Naveed Mohammad, vice president, medical affairs.

“Despite having a holiday surge plan in advance, we were really hit hard. On our busiest day, we saw 488 people at Brampton Civic and 285 at Etobicoke General.” Dr. Naveed Mohammad, vice-president, medical affairs, Osler.

“Having said that, if we have to make this an effective centre and bring down wait-times at BCH, then we have to make sure patients with right conditions come to UCC and the BCH.”

For some weeks now, the ER at BCH has seen an unusually high surge in the number of patients; most exhibiting flu symptoms, noted Mohammad. He said meeting rooms were cleared to accommodate beds and the cafeteria area was converted into a temporary makeshift clinic.

“The number of patients exceeded the resources the hospitals had in place,” he said. “Despite having a holiday surge plan in advance, we were really hit hard. On our busiest day, we saw 488 people at Brampton Civic and 285 at Etobicoke General.”

Most that came through the doors had flu or flu-like symptoms, but freezing rain and slippery roads on few days meant the ER physicians treated people with fractures and car-accident related injuries.

On average, BCH receives about 600 ambulances weekly, but recently, ER staff treated some 800 patients, all of whom were brought to the hospital by ambulances, Mohammad explained.

The $451 million health campus — funded by Queen’s Park as well as Brampton taxpayers — will house clinics to manage diseases, and handle day surgeries, and diagnostic services. Brampton taxpayers have committed $60M to Peel Memorial health campus project.