Funding shortfall forcing layoffs at local health unit

Huron-Perth Public Health (HPPH) says it’s removing 10 per cent of its workforce to try and eliminate at $1.5-million budget shortfall.

“We have had to make difficult decisions,” said Dr. Miriam Klassen, Medical Officer of Health for Huron and Perth. “We have spent the past year decreasing program expenses in a variety of ways; however most of our budget is for human resources. We had to make the difficult decision to remove positions from the organization.”

Klassen said 13.5 positions at Huron-Perth Public Health will be eliminated through a series of layoffs, retirements and ending of temporary staff contracts.

She said the decrease in staff will impact the programs and services the organization provides to the community.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, emergency provincial funding allowed Huron-Perth Public Health to operate with a large redeployment of staff — but base funding barely changed and is not keeping up with rising expenses, according to Klassen.

With the end to COVID funding, HPPH has accumulated a $1.5 million funding shortfall over the past 5 years.

Exactly what services and programs will be cut or reduced are still to be decided, said HPPH, but the changes are expected to be in place by January 2024.

“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.” 

With regards to the news from HPPH, a spokesperson for Minister of Health Sylvia Jones, reached out to CTV News to provide the following statement.

“Since 2018, our government has increased provincial public health unit funding for programs and services has increased by 16%. In response to the pandemic, our government invested and additional $100 million to support public health units (PHUs) respond to the pandemic.

As Minister Jones announced at AMO in August, our government is providing a 1% increase in base funding per year, for three years beginning in 2024.

As part of that same announcement, Minister Jones announced that in addition to an increase in base funding, our government was returning to the 75/25 cost share for PHUs to stabilize current and future funding, responding directly to the asks of PHUs across the province, including Huron Perth.”