HDGH preparing to close surge unit as flu cases decline

Hotel-Dieu Grace Healthcare seen in Windsor, Ont. on Nov. 19, 2025. (Stefanie Masotti/CTV News Windsor)

Hotel-Dieu Grace Healthcare is preparing to close it’s surge unit area as flu cases decline locally.

The hospital opened its 2North Surge Unit on December 16 to help support Windsor Regional Hospital and Erie Shores HealthCare during the busy holiday season.

The region was experiencing a spike in flu cases over the holiday season, with both Windsor Regional and Erie Shores experiencing higher-than-usual volumes in their emergency departments.

The 2North Surge Unit offered 20 beds on the second floor of the Emara building to ease the pressure. These beds were open to support patients who were waiting for a long term care bed.

Between December 16 and January 12, Hotel-Dieu saw 21 admissions to 2North. This is a drastic improvement from last year, which saw 2North open in Sept. 2024, and close April 2025, seeing 202 admissions during that time.

Shannon Landry, VP of Clinical Services Restorative Care and Chief Nursing Executive for Hotel-Dieu, says there was a rise in emergency department visits at local hospitals.

“We knew working with our community partners, and what we were seeing internally, we needed to start to look at opening up our Surge Unit again. Our patient population, we were at about 95 to 100 per cent occupancy, so we had to move some patients through, and the only way to do that was to open up our surge beds.”

She says this year saw a different trend compared to last winter.

“Patients were really sick coming into the emergency department, but it obviously didn’t start until mid-December. So we opened up our unit mid-December, and then December 27th, 28th, our acute care partners started to get really, really busy... so that’s when we really started to ramp up and see the activity happening.”

Landry says those who were transferred to Hotel-Dieu still needed to meet requirements.

“Most of those patients in the units that has opened, called our Surge Unit or 2North, are patients who are waiting for long term care homes that we’re just trying to get them out of the acute care, so acute care can get their patients from the emergency department up into the medicine beds.”

Hotel-Dieu has administered 191 flu vaccines and 139 COVID-19 vaccines to protect the vulnerable patient population.

As Hotel-Dieu is seeing a decline in flu cases, and the local acute care partners are seeing improvements, the 2North Surge Unit is expected to stop taking referrals on February 6.