The Fort Erie Urgent Care Centre will be reopening on Wednesday after being closed for nearly seven weeks due to staffing shortages.

The centre will fully reopen to provide 24/7 service starting at 8 a.m.

“Thankfully, the number of COVID-19 cases in the community and in the hospital continue to decrease, and our staffing levels have stabilized,” says Lynn Guerriero, Niagara Health President and CEO in a statement. “We are now in a position to safely redeploy our UCC staff and physicians back to the Fort Erie Site.”

Guerriero says it will take time to get back to full capacity to ensure they are prepared should there be another surge of COVID-19 patients.

The urgent care centre was temporarily closed on Jan. 6.

The decision was part of a larger plan to temporarily prioritize care for patients who needed critical, emergency and acute care services due to COVID-19.

The Omicron variant had a significant impact on patient volumes and staffing levels. More than 350 staff members were in self isolation in the month of December due to COVID-19.

Niagara Health says it has recently been experiencing lower volumes of COVID-19 hospitalizations. As of Tuesday, there were 57 patients with COVID-19.

Patients who had appointments cancelled at the hospital will be contacted directly to re-schedule their appointments for surgeries, procedures and outpatient services.