THUNDER BAY – Regional municipal leaders are trying to give the Progressive Conservative provincial government a second opinion on potential changes to the structure and funding of Ontario's public health units.
The Ford government's has proposed consolidating the existing 35 public health units in Ontario down to 10 and intends to reduce the funding it provides through the existing cost-share model with municipalities.
At its annual general meeting on Wednesday, Northwestern Ontario Municipal Association membership passed a resolution calling on the province to recognize the role of public health, maintain or enhance existing funding and continue with local public health units instead of the proposed consolidated regional structures.
Kenora Coun. Sharon Smith, an executive member of the Northwestern Health Unit board of health, on Friday asked provincial cabinet ministers Greg Rickford and Steve Clark to ensure meaningful consultation with municipalities and requested a deferral to 2020 to implement changes to the cost-sharing model.
Increasing the municipal portion of the cost-share to 30 per cent from the current 25 per cent will result in Kenora paying an additional $140,000 to its annual health unit levy, Smith said.
"We ask that you recognize the vast geographical area of Northwestern Ontario and to continue with the public health structure of local public health units instead of regional public health entities, thereby optimizing effective public health programs and services for the region," Smith said.
"It feels like the rug is being pulled out from under us. We fear the additional financial pressure of downloaded costs for public health and other programs like EMS not yet fully understood will be a burden property taxpayers will not be able to bear."
Clark, the minister of municipal afairs and housing, said he had met with his local medical officer of health and recognized immediate changes to the formula would pose a challenge for municipalities that had already set their budgets.
"I think that's a very important aspect for us to listen to people in Northern Ontario to understand the distinct challenges they face," Clark said. "We knew we had to transform some services. It's very important though as we move towards transforming services like public health that we continue to have dialogue on the ground of what the effects are."
Ontario NDP leader Andrea Horwath, who also visited the conference on Friday, said the Ford government's budget cuts will have a profound impact on Northwestern Ontario.
"The deep, deep cuts that are in this budget are already going to create downloading for municipalities," Horwath said.
"Municipalities are losing support from the provincial government. How do they make up for that? Whether it's in health care, whether it's in education, whether it's in social services or land ambulance or public health, the bottom line is that municipalities want to provide service to their residents so they're going to be forced with decisions about whether to pick up those services and try to make up for the loss the government is creating by withdrawing funding or they'll watch their residents continue to suffer and to have a more difficult life."
Last week, Thunder Bay district board of health chair James McPherson speculated that the consolidations could result in one health unit spanning from the Manitoba border to Sudbury.
Smith reminded Rickford and Clark that the region typically has poorer health outcomes than other parts of Ontario.
"There are worse disease mortality and morbidity rates with Northwestern Ontario compared to the province, particularly in mental health and addictions," Smith said. "Public health initiatives are proven to show a significant return on investment."
The province also announced its intention to reduce the number of ambulance services from the current 52 municipal-based providers to 10.
Horwath called that decision an example of the government not understanding Northern Ontario.
"We already have municipalities in and around the northwest that, for example, are short ambulance services already. There are places ambulances are being used for patient transfers because there's no patient transfer services and that takes those ambulances off the road completely for an emergency," Horwath said.
"These kinds of specific characteristics of ambulance service in the north are not being thought of by this government. If you go down to 10 providers with the vast geography of the north, with the amount of communities around Northern Ontario, places where there's no 911 service, places where you can't even really access a reliable GPS signal, all of these things are going to be extremely detrimental to northerners being able to have reliable access to 911 and ambulance service."
