New urgent care walk-in clinic opens today in Windsor

A new urgent care walk-in clinic is opening on University Avenue West today. 

UMC Urgent Care will be opening its doors today as the largest clinic in Windsor-Essex County. 

The clinic, located at 1100 University Avenue West, is run by Emergency Room physicians and nurses. 

Speaking on AM800's The Shift, Dennis Korwen, the owner of the clinic, explains that they want to help with the current code reds and code blacks throughout the region by being an urgent care clinic. 

It's equip with primary care, preventative care, a labs area, X-ray imaging, vaccinations, and a pharmacy on site.

Korwen says they picked this location intentionally. 

"It's a very high needs area, it's a block away from the old Grace Hospital site, the old ER there, and not too far from the Prince Road site. And there's just a huge need, let alone in Windsor, but on the west end of town to help patients at this side of the city."

Bryce Leontowicz, ER doctor, says it was important to have Emergency Room physicians, nurses, and even ER receptionists.

"We have about six to 12 ER physicians that are going to be there at all times. They've all been working in the ER since COVID began, they're aware of all the code blacks that we're going through, the long wait times, they've been in the trenches since the beginning. So they're more than capable of handling any of the issues that come about."

Leontowicz says the area has about 30,000 individuals who don't have a family doctor. 

"The sort of bridge between that walk-in clinic and the emergency room to sort of offload some of those wait times is one of our main goals with the urgent care site. We have labs, X-ray imaging, we have pharmacy on site, vaccines available for COVID and the flu."

The clinic is also equip with crash carts, defibrillators, ultrasound machines, and EKG machines. 

Initial hours of operation of the clinic will be Monday to Thursday from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m., Friday's from 12 p.m. to 4 p.m., and Saturday's from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., but depending on the need they may extend hours from 8 p.m. to midnight, seven days a week. 

The clinic provides free parking at the site. 

-with files from AM800's The Shift with Patty Handysides