The budget shortfall at Huron Perth Public Health leading to an organizational restructure and a 10 per cent reduction in staff will include several public health nurses and public health promoters.
In a Wednesday afternoon conference call with media, Dr. Miriam Klassen, Medical Officer of Health for Huron and Perth, said HPPH must address a $1.5 million funding gap accumulated over five years.
The "eliminations" will see 13.5 positions removed from the HPPH organizational structure.
Staff impacted include a number of public health nurses and public health promotors, a program manager, a public health dietitian, an administrative assistant/program support (0.5), a program evaluator, a community developer and an online communications coordinator.
"These are really difficult times," Klassen said. "Our staff are very passionate about public health and the various specific areas, programs they work in. They value relationships with community partners and their clients, so that is difficult."
"Our board of health and senior leadership team, we all value the work of public health, it saddens us to cut back or discontinue programs and services and we regret when that is necessary."
While the provincial government's one per cent base-funding increase for public health units over the next three years is welcome news, providing "stability and predictability for budget planning," Klassen said it does not cover the gap in funding for increases such as operating expenses, wages and benefits and overall cost of living increases in Canada, which has been well above one per cent.
Klassen said HPPH have spent the past year decreasing program expenses in a variety of ways but most of of the organization's budget is for human resources.
"We had to make the difficult decision to remove positions from the organization.”
Prior to the 2020 amalgamation of the Huron County Health Unit and Perth District Health Unit, both organizations received little to no budget increases while expenses continued to rise due to inflation, affecting wages and other operating costs, HPPH said.
During the acute pandemic phase, one-time COVID-19 funding allowed HPPH to provide a comprehensive response to the COVID-19 pandemic. At that time some 75-78 per cent of HPPH staff were redeployed into COVID-19 response and some additional staff were hired. Increases to the base budget were limited, and did not keep up with rising expenses.
With COVID-19 funding ended, HPPH said it must address the accumulated $1.5 million funding gap.
HPPH said it will rely on its newly released 2024-2027 Strategic Plan to help determine how best to deliver programs and services in the years ahead.
These are the first budget-related layoffs for HPPH. Health units must balance their budgets and can't run deficits.
Reductions begin with retirements in December, with the full reorganization starting mid-January, when layoffs take effect, she said.
"For sure, the reduction of 24,570 hours of staff time will make an impact."
Klassen said some of the details about how the board of health will look after the changes have yet to be ironed out, but they do anticipate reductions in areas such as health promotion, community development, population health surveillance and evaluation.
Certain programs with legal requirements that need to be maintained like outbreak management or with specific funding obligations, such as the Healthy Babies Healthy Children, for example, will not be impacted, Klassen said.
“Public health in Ontario is heading into a transitional time,” said Klassen. “Public health structure, funding and mandates are under review. We expect new Ontario Public Health Standards to be implemented in 2025, and a new funding approach to be implemented in 2026.”
