Out-Of-Hours Urgent Care Services Remain Open at the Lamb Foggo UCC

Bermuda Hospitals Board today announces that the Lamb Foggo Urgent Care Centre will remain open its for its popular out of hours urgent care services, but from Monday 1 April 2013 will no longer have a limited daytime diagnostic service available on weekdays.

This means the urgent care service will continue to be staffed by a physician, nurses and diagnostic technicians from 4pm to midnight in the week and on Public Holidays, and from noon to midnight on weekends. This service is used by in excess of 5,000 people per year. The walk-in day time service was between 8am and 4pm and provided a diagnostic service only for people who had doctor referrals for x-ray, ultrasound or lab (blood and urine) tests. This service was only accessed by about 10 people per day.

The facility will continue to open and deliver medical services to the East End when the causeway closes, for example during hurricanes. It will also continue to be available as a disaster hub in the event of a major event in the East End.

Venetta Symonds, CEO & President, comments: “The urgent care centre provides a useful service in the evenings, weekends and public holidays for people with minor injuries and illnesses who cannot wait for their primary care physician’s office to open. This out-of-hours service is well utilized, and figures show that it has reduced some of the pressure experienced in the hospital’s Emergency Department. Unfortunately, the small numbers of people accessing the limited daytime service does not support us staffing the facility from 8am to 4pm. In the current environment it is simply not cost-effective for Bermuda at a time when we are seeking ways to be more efficient and control the costs of healthcare for the island.”

The Diagnostic Technicians who had been working during the day at the Lamb Foggo Urgent Care Centre will be redeployed at King Edward VII Memorial Hospital.

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