{"id":29292,"date":"2022-12-12T10:35:20","date_gmt":"2022-12-12T15:35:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ontariohealthcoalition.ca\/?p=29292"},"modified":"2024-01-22T10:40:55","modified_gmt":"2024-01-22T15:40:55","slug":"3-eastern-ontario-health-units-exploring-merger","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ontariohealthcoalition.ca\/index.php\/3-eastern-ontario-health-units-exploring-merger\/","title":{"rendered":"3 eastern Ontario health units exploring merger"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>(December 11, 2023)<\/p>\n<p>By: Safiyah Marhnouj, CBC News<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Three\u00a0health units in eastern Ontario are considering merging into one\u00a0in response to the province&#8217;s\u00a0<span style=\"color: #3366ff;\"><a style=\"color: #3366ff;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/news\/canada\/london\/ontario-public-health-units-1.6944303\"><u>recent efforts<\/u><\/a>\u00a0<\/span>to consolidate such units across Ontario.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Kingston, Frontenac, and Lennox\u00a0&amp;\u00a0Addington Public Health, the Leeds, Grenville and Lanark (LGL) District Health Unit\u00a0and Hastings Prince Edward Public Health\u00a0said in a joint news release last week that they would begin investigating the feasibility of a potential merger.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Altogether, they\u00a0provide services for about 560,000 people in communities stretching roughly from Trenton in the west to Brockville in the east and Almonte in the north.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Back in 2019, the province\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/news\/canada\/toronto\/public-health-units-ford-government-1.5142217\"><u><span style=\"color: #3366ff;\">announced plans to combine 35 public health units into 10<\/span><\/u><\/a>, but those plans were put on hold by the COVID-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">In August, Health Minister Sylvia Jones said the province will offer funding to those that voluntarily merge as the government works on a long-term approach to the structure of the health-care system.<\/p>\n<div dir=\"ltr\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Peter McKenna, chair for the LGL\u00a0board of health, said now is a good time for public health units to consider whether a merger could work.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">When the province first announced the merger plans in 2019, McKenna said LGL\u00a0wasn&#8217;t entirely on board, but now it has\u00a0the chance to make the choice on its\u00a0own terms.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">&#8220;We have an option of a voluntary merger with health units that are contiguous to our geography that we&#8217;ve probably worked with in the past,&#8221; he told CBC Radio&#8217;s\u00a0<em>All In A Day.<\/em><\/p>\n<h2 dir=\"ltr\">A chance to &#8216;strengthen&#8217; services<\/h2>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">McKenna said his board\u00a0is obligated to look at how services will be delivered locally in the long term.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">&#8220;We&#8217;re about 100 staff and [have a] $14-million budget. That&#8217;s very small in the health-care sector today and our revenues were growing below inflation \u2014 but our costs were exceeding that,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">McKenna said the three boards will be considering if they&#8217;ll be stronger together.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">&#8220;What if<strong>\u00a0<\/strong>one plus one plus one\u00a0actually equals four? [Will]\u00a0the three of us coming together strengthen our capacity to better serve our population?&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">&#8220;That&#8217;s the theory. We wouldn&#8217;t have gone down that road if we didn&#8217;t believe it&#8217;s quite possible.&#8221;<\/p>\n<div dir=\"ltr\">\n<h2 dir=\"ltr\">Centralization a &#8216;bad idea,&#8217; says advocacy group<\/h2>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Merging public health units is a &#8220;bad idea,&#8221; said Ross Sutherland, a retired registered nurse and chair of both the Kingston Health Coalition and the Ontario Health Coalition.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">&#8220;This centralization \u2014 especially of public health \u2014\u00a0 is, I think, harmful to the way we deliver public health. Public health has to be rooted in community, it&#8217;s just by its nature,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">No two communities are the same, Sutherland said, and similar health issues may be addressed differently \u2014 especially between rural and urban areas.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Centralizing public health comes with the risk of losing\u00a0connection with the community, he added, especially since health boards will cover much larger geographical areas.<\/p>\n<div dir=\"ltr\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\">That doesn&#8217;t mean public health units shouldn&#8217;t look into ways they can work together, Sutherland said.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">&#8220;There is lots of room for public health units to co-operate on programs and I think that the province should be encouraging that,&#8221; he said, adding that could\u00a0help them share resources and knowledge while maintaining their individual structures.<\/p>\n<h2 dir=\"ltr\">Won&#8217;t change\u00a0front-line care, says health unit<\/h2>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">If all three boards go forward with a voluntary merger, a proposal will be submitted to the Ministry of Health by March 2024\u00a0and will be subject to the ministry&#8217;s approval.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Front-line health\u00a0workers would not be affected by any merger, McKenna said.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">&#8220;I can speak for all three health units. All of the front-line services that the public expects from us will continue,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">&#8220;All of the staff who deliver those services, and where they deliver them, will continue in the same way.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/news\/canada\/ottawa\/health-unit-eastern-ontario-merger-kingston-belleville-1.7054519\"><span style=\"color: #3366ff;\">Click here for original article\u00a0<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>(December 11, 2023) By: Safiyah Marhnouj, CBC News Three\u00a0health units in eastern Ontario are considering merging into one\u00a0in response to the province&#8217;s\u00a0recent efforts\u00a0to consolidate such units across Ontario. Kingston, Frontenac, and Lennox\u00a0&amp;\u00a0Addington Public Health, the Leeds, Grenville and Lanark (LGL) District Health Unit\u00a0and Hastings Prince Edward Public Health\u00a0said in a joint news release last week [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29292","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ohc-in-the-news"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>3 eastern Ontario health units exploring merger - Ontario Health Coalition<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"(December 11, 2023) By: Safiyah Marhnouj, CBC News Three\u00a0health units in eastern Ontario are considering merging into one\u00a0in response to the\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ontariohealthcoalition.ca\/index.php\/3-eastern-ontario-health-units-exploring-merger\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"3 eastern Ontario health units exploring merger - 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