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Provincial budget indicates new direction for public health

The provincial budget released on April 11th includes significant new direction for Sudbury Public Health and other units.

For the Sudbury unit, this includes a hiring freeze and the cancellation of all non-essential spending.
“We are mobilizing within the northeast and are working with our four neighbouring public health units to get ready for change,” said Dr. Penny Sutcliffe, Sudbury and Districts Medical Officer of Health.
By 2020-21, the Ontario government plans to establish 10 regional public health entities and 10 new regional boards of health with one common governance model.

Sutcliffe says the new budget means other major changes.

“We have had a Northeastern Collaborative Shared Services Project underway and it is now adjusting its focus to how together we can shape the restructuring of the public health system across the region. My goal is that we are an early adopter and figure out how best to serve the public health needs of people in the North East – all within a context of one new organization and severely constrained resources.

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“Public health programs and services are essential to the health of local communities. We will continue to offer the full scope per the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care’s Ontario Public Health Standards, without interruption and for as long as possible.”

The key role of public health is to bridge support and create community collaboration within the health sector and well beyond.

The work of public health is foundational to community health by seeking to amplify the health potential of decisions made in all sectors, such as education, transportation, municipal, social services, etc. Direct services are delivered to people in addition to collaborative work to ensure that community decisions are informed by a health lens.

Quick facts:

In 2019/20 the provincial/municipal cost-shared funding will be readjusted.

The 35 existing public health units and 35 boards of health will be dissolved, and 10 new much larger regional entities with boards will be established by 2020/21. To date, the geographic service boundaries of these entities have not been established.

Under the provincial budget, funding cuts in the amount of $200M are to be achieved across the local public health system by fiscal year 2021/22, which represents a potential reduction in provincial grants for cost-shared programs of up to 27%.

These cuts are in addition to significant prior funding reductions experienced as the result of a revised provincial funding formula introduced in 2015 and provincial fiscal constraints.

Part of the funding changes means a reduction of about $1-million, which the government expects municipalities to pick up.

In 2019/21, the province will only pay 70% for mandatory programs instead of 75 and only 70% of Allied Programs instead of the complete cost.

And that is not the only possible cuts, since the provincial contribution will be further decreased in subsequent years based on the size of the new regional public health entity.

The Northeastern Collaborative Shared Services Project includes Algoma Public Health, North Bay Parry Sound District Health Unit, Porcupine Health Unit, Public Health Sudbury & Districts, and the Timiskaming Health Unit.

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