The Niagara North Family Health Team in Virgil will be relocating temporarily to the old NOTL hospital at the end of December.

Five doctors and the clinic's nurses and other health professionals announced earlier this year they eventually will move their practices to the new Village Medical Centre when it is built next year. The rest of the physicians have said they will stay on at the current Virgil site.

But until the new centre opens some services need a new home.

“Currently there’s a gap between when our lease ends at the end of December and when we will be able to move into the new medical centre in April,” executive director Mary Keith told councillors last week.

The only physician moving into the old hospital will be Dr. Tim Bastedo, she said.

All of the other health staff will be moving but due to limited space they will be rotating who works in the old hospital and who works from home, Keith told The Lake Report.

She said it is unclear where all the other physicians will be working in the new year. 

Keith said the health team will rent 1,380 square feet of space in the basement of the old hospital, which is owned by the Town of NOTL.

The annual cost for the space is $25 per square foot.

The medical team will be sharing the hospital site with Royal Oak School and a LifeLabs Medical Services operation.

Council agreed to lease the space on a month-to-month basis.