We could use more revenue, there is no question. I would invest more in our strategic areas of supporting youth mental health and substance use.
DR. VERA ETCHES, on Ottawa Public Health’s budget,
The city’s medical officer of health, Dr. Vera Etches, put a brave face on Ottawa Public Health’s operating budget for 2020, but the fact is that notwithstanding three new provincially funded programs, there’ll be less money in the kitty for the city’s health programs.
OPH presented its balanced-budget draft to the Ottawa Board of Health on Monday night, a $73.7-million estimate that includes a municipal contribution of $22.9 million. The total is about $2.4 million more than OPH’s 2019 budget of $71.3 million, but if you discount the $3.6 million in Ontario funding dedicated to new programs targeting dental care for low-income seniors, Indigenous health care and controls on cannabis, tobacco and vaping use, Etches said OPH’s budget will be about two per cent lower than it was in 2019.
“We could use more revenue, there is no question. I would invest more in our strategic areas of supporting youth mental health and substance use,” Etches said. “I think we could do more to have a team that focused on getting more prevention happening across the public health system and healthcare systems. So there’s work we could do with more revenue, I won’t deny that. But I think this year you see us doing our part to balance our budget … and into the future I hope our budgets will grow.”
The city’s share of OPH’s proposed budget represents an increase of $475,000 over this year’s costs, but the province’s refusal to pony up a two per cent cost-ofliving increase on its share — the province and city split costs on roughly a 70-30 basis — meant that OPH had to find $1.36 million in “efficiencies.”
“We had to reduce vacant positions and look at less advertising, less printing, less supplies,” said Etches, “those kinds of things that do affect how much work we can do.
“The work to review our programs and find efficiencies definitely focused on services that were administrative and services that were internal and not the front-line, one-on-one service. We prioritized the service to the public and don’t think there’ll be a recognizable impact.”
Board of Health chair Keith Egli described the process of changing OPH’s budget model without reducing services as “a challenge,” adding that it’s not something that OPH could continue to do year over year.
Meanwhile, the city is still awaiting word from the province whether Ottawa will even have its own dedicated health department. The Ontario government announced in April that it intended to amalgamate the province’s 35 health units into 10.
“We don’t know if we’ll be on our own or part of something else or what our catchment area will be,” said Egli.
But Egli added that the city continues to look for new ways to fund programming. One example, he said, is a pilot program to provide a safer supply of opioids to people with substance-use disorder. Currently serving 20 or 30 people, OPH is hoping that Health Canada will fund the project that could change the lives of hundreds. “A totally new way of doing it in Ottawa, with a different revenue stream. So we’re not standing idle while this is happening. We’re looking for different partnerships, different funding relationships and that’s how we’re going to tackle this.”
OPH’s draft budget will be tabled at city council Wednesday. The final 2020 city operations and capital budget approval will take place Dec. 11.