Three Wisconsin urgent care clinics within the Advocate Aurora Health network were closed down temporarily due to staffing shortages. A spokesperson for the clinics told The Wisconsin Daily Star that the closures are due to “managing the COVID surge combined with staffing shortages.”
Adam Mesirow, the external communications director for Advocate Aurora Health told The Sun that the company will “have more to share on reopening in the coming days.” Mesirow did not tell The Star what caused the staffing shortages or if the shortages are impacting any other clinics.
The three urgent care clinics temporarily closed are the ones located in Menomonee Falls, Brookfield, and on River Center Drive in Milwaukee. The regular clinic hours for all three are 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. Monday through Friday.
FOX 9 reported that employees of the clinics communicated by phone that the urgent care portions of the clinics are set to reopen January 6, but Mesirow did not confirm this.
Some other clinics within the Advocate Aurora network are experiencing wait times of nearly 13 hours. The urgent care in West Allis was reporting a wait time of over 950 minutes on Thursday evening.
Aurora Urgent Care clinics in Racine and Wauwatosa had wait times of over 300 minutes. Most of the other clinics within the Aurora network listed wait times of over an hour and a half. A banner on the Aurora Health website said that patients “may experience longer than usual wait times as we manage through this COVID surge and staffing shortages.”
The website also shares that as of December 30, “To help keep our patients, visitors and team members safe, we re-implemented a no-visitor policy.” The policy also shares that adult patients who come into the Emergency Department are not allowed to have a visitor with them.
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Hayley Feland is a reporter with The Minnesota Sun and The Wisconsin Daily Star | Star News Network. Follow Hayley on Twitter or like her Facebook page. Send news tips to [email protected].
Photo “Urgent Care” by Tony Webster CC BY 2.0.
