Windsor Regional Hospital concludes use of St. Clair Sportsplex

Windsor, Ont. -

Windsor Regional Hospital is thanking St. Clair College for the use of the Sportsplex during the COVID-19 pandemic as it returns the facility to staff and students.

The Sportsplex was the site of a COVID-19 field hospital, drive-thru testing location and vaccination centre for over a year.

The athletic centre can now be restored to its original purpose in time for the fall semester and sports season, about 15 months after it was first loaned to the hospital.

In that time:

• 53 long-term care patients were treated at the Sportsplex, operating as a COVID-19 field hospital from April 18 to June 13, 2020.
• 7568 individuals were swabbed for COVID-19 tests in August, September and October when the Sportsplex was in use as a COVID-19 Assessment Centre
• 112,777vaccines were administered, involving 85,051unique individuals.

“We simply could not have accomplished what we need to, through the course of this COVID-19 pandemic, without the generous donation of adequate space from our friends at St. Clair College,” said WRH president and CEO David Musyj.

Musyj says dozens of long-term care residents received vital health support there that gave many a chance to recover without infecting other residents and LTC staff. Later, thousands of individuals were tested for the virus and most recently, tens of thousands of Windsor-Essex residents became inoculated against this virus.

“We cannot understate how fortunate we were that St. Clair College was willing and ready to assist our community –this is a great partnership that our community can be proud of,” says Musyj.

In order to commemorate this partnership and time in history, WRH unveiled plans for a plaque that will be later placed inside the Sportsplex to commemorate the many individuals and staff who visited there during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021.

“It was both the college’s duty and honourto provide all of the facilities at our disposal in response to this crisis in our community,” said St. Clair president Patti France. “As an institution -as local citizens ourselves -St. Clair’s staff and students felt obligated to extend any help we could to care for our neighbours and relieve the burden on our health-care heroes during the pandemic.”