People sit in a waiting area to be injected with the H1N1 flu vaccine at a clinic in Ottawa on Monday, October 26, 2009.FRED CHARTRAND
Toronto's Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre is opening a separate emergency department to exclusively treat people with flu symptoms.
The new ward isn't a walk-in clinic and won't be giving out H1N1 vaccinations, but aims to relieve the growing pressure on Sunnybrook's regular emergency ward as more and more people will flu symptoms seek treatment.
Hospital president and CEO Barry McLellan said in a press release the ward is designed to take patients who need rapid assessment for "mild to moderate severity influenza-like illness".
Dr. McLellan said the hospital hasn't yet seen a dramatic rise in the number of patients who need to be admitted for H1N1 or other flu, but there has been an increase in people with flu symptoms arriving at the hospital's emergency department.
Sunnybrook's flu ward will open today at 3:30 p.m. ET and will be open for eight hours each evening for the next week.