The minister of health says it’s a struggle to keep the Urgent Care Clinic on Stavanger Drive open 12 hours a day.

NLHS has had to revert to a virtual-doctors-only service on several occasions. Plus, it has yet to open its long-awaited urgent care clinic in Mount Pearl due to a lack of staff.

Minister Lela Evans wants to expand hours at the site, but says staffing evenings and weekends has been challenging.

“As the minister, I’m very committed not only to making sure we keep the hours from 8 to 8, but in actual fact, we need to be able to be expanding the resources,” she told reporters.

“We’re also looking at the two planned urgent care centers here on the Avalon as well. We are actively working on getting those up and running as well. So we have to be increasing the resources, not decreasing them.”