Prince Edward County Council has heard from South East Public Health, about their post-merger status.
Southeast Public Health Board Chair Nathan Townsend spoke to council during Tuesday’s meeting, outlining the current status of the health unit after the completed merger.
In his presentation, Townsend broke down the role of Southeast Public Health, as working on projects and services to keep the public healthy, rather than primary health care which helps people who are sick. In that role, public health does a lot of work to educate the public about potential health hazards and best practices. Public health also provides programs designed to help improve people’s overall health, with an example given in programs designed to help people quit smoking.
Another major focus of the presentation was the post-merger harmonization. Ever since the former public health units that became South East Public Health merged, there’s been efforts to ensure all communities covered by the new organization are paying equally into it. Townsend remarked that over time, provincial contributions to health units has declined. While they were originally established with 75% provincial funding and the rest from local communities, the provincial contribution has not kept up with inflation. Provincial contributions have only been increasing at a rate of 1% per year, effectively being a reduction as inflation outpaced the increases, and more costs fell on municipalities. As a result, some communities have seen significant increases to their public health contributions under harmonization, with the new unit being effectively funded at 70% provincial and 30% municipal to avoid program cuts.
While discussing the presentation, Councillor Bill Roberts said that some serious advocacy work is needed to get the province to provide more funding for Public Health.
“Ontario has the lowest per-capita investment in public health in the country, way below average,” said Councillor Roberts. “Way below the national average, of course, in terms of funding gaps. When you look at 26/27 in terms of health care as an entire envelope for the ministry, you’re looking at a 1.6% cut below the inflation rate.”
Councillor John Hirsch suggested that more work needs to be done to educate the public specifically on the role of public health.
“I think one of the main issues probably is that much of the public doesn’t understand what is a health unit. What does public health do? They have no idea,” said Councillor Hirsch. “And the province then thinks they can get away with 1% a year and just let the service gradually decline. And we can’t let that happen.”
Council accepted the presentation for information, but took no further action at this time.
