Belleville City Council received a deputation from members of the Hastings Prince Edward Ontario Health Team at its meeting on Monday.
Council had previously called on the health team to provide them with an update on how it utilized $4.45 million in funding it had received from the province back in July 2025 as part of a letter it sent to the Minister of Health on whether the city should be continuing its efforts in primary care physician recruitment.
The deputation had initially been scheduled for back in January but had been postponed due to significant snowfall that had hit the Quinte region during that time.
As part of the funding, the goal was to connect up to 10,675 people to primary health care.
Presenting to council, Sheila Bradek with the Hastings Prince Edward Ontario Health Team says the group has been able to attach over 6700 people to primary health care over the last several months.
Bradek noted that there have been some challenges in recruiting staff and getting a physical space.
“We’ve had some challenges, especially in the Belleville area, because there’s not a lot of appropriate infrastructure available to use for primary care space,” Bradek explained to council.
“You actually need a lot of plumbing, and there’s not a lot of spaces around that have that available plumbing. So it means investments need to be made in order to make the space ready to receive new primary care providers. So we’re in the process of trying to make that happen, but it’s it’s challenging, and it’s taking a bit longer than we had hoped.”
The round of funding that the health team received is part of several rounds that are being distributed by the province, with Dr. Rob Pincock saying that the team has submitted for another round of funding back in November 2025.
That round of funding, if approved, would be focused on Quinte West.
They expect to make submissions for another round of funding to come in September.
When asked by Councillor Paul Carr after the presentation how much recruitment has been done by the health team, Bradek said that the team has been able to recruit 16 full time equivalent positions of the 35 that had been funded for.
These positions range from physicians, nurse practitioners, nurses, social workers etc.
Councillor Kathryn Brown asked about how recruiting was done, with Bradek saying teams are doing their own recruiting.
Councillor Sean Kelly criticized the province, saying that the initial ask from the city was in the ballpark of $30 million.
“So when we get less than $5 million and it goes to Bancroft, Prince Edward County, Brighton, Stirling and Tweed, and those communities need it. In Belleville, to me, that’s a slap in the side of the head from the province, because the request went in, this is what we need to make a dent.”
Dr. Pincock said that the health team continues to try and negotiate with the province.
“I’m not going to say we don’t share the frustrations of trying to negotiate with the province about, you know, what our needs are as far as we can figure out and what they see our needs are, and try and reconcile those two,” Dr. Pincock said.
“We certainly are continuing to to make the case for the region… what we’re seeing is we are seeing incremental wins.”
Council voted to receive the deputation.
