Hamilton denied $9 million for pandemic backlogs in public health

The province has rejected Hamilton public health's request for $9 million to address pandemic backlogs as it ramps up programs paused or drastically reduced for more than two years.

Another $2.4 million needed to cover inflation and other shortfalls in base funding has also been denied.

In addition, cuts have been proposed to programs that work with homeless Hamiltonians experiencing mental-health and addiction issues because there has been no increase in provincial funding over the last year to cover inflation.

The latter particularly irked Hamilton's board of health on Monday as councillors voted to defer the cutbacks until at least August while staff look for other ways to fund the roughly $130,000 shortfall or advocate for more provincial dollars.

It is bewildering," said Coun. Maureen Wilson. We are a city ... struggling with a crisis."

Coun. Brad Clark said he couldn't support cutting the equivalent of 1.3 full-time jobs that help those living on the street.

In my opinion, we should probably have more people working in that division than what we have currently," he said. I could argue that we can't really make a dent in those issues without additional support."

The need for more services is so acute that Hamilton Public Library is using its own funds to pay for a social worker to be on-site at the central library downtown on York Boulevard from Tuesday to Saturday.

[Hamilton Public Library to hire a social worker at its downtown branch]

Board of health approved the partnership Monday with the hope the full-time social work position will help the library better respond to those coming through its doors seeking help.

Hamilton Health Sciences is also trying to fill the gaps by providing funding to public health for the equivalent of 1.5 additional full-time jobs to provide addiction services to patients in hospital.

I'm glad to see Hamilton Health Sciences step in and lean in," said Wilson. Our housing crisis and our homelessness crisis is in fact a health crisis."

One shortfall where the province is stepping up with a major funding boost was dental care for low-income seniors, which Coun. Tom Jackson called extremely vital."

The province will provide $1.1 million in capital investment to build a dedicated seniors' dental clinic and $1.8 million yearly in operating costs. It will result in the equivalent of 12.2 more full-time jobs to improve the existing Ontario Seniors Dental Care Program launched in 2019.

The demand for the program is high as its staff were among those redeployed to the pandemic, resulting in major backlogs.

It was the only pandemic backlog funded despite a long list at public health, including thousands of Hamilton schoolchildren missing routine vaccines, thousands of skipped inspections, significant increases in wait times for kids' mental-health services, troubling drops in developmental assessment for children and high-risk families going without the help they need.

This is a really important report speaking to those deficits of care and the absolute necessity of sustainable, predictable funding," said Wilson.

Public health plans to cover the $9 million needed to reduce the backlogs with money left over from dozens of unfilled jobs.

There are not enough qualified individuals to fill all of the needed roles across the public health system," stated a report to the board.

In addition, public health was not able to get redeployed staff back to their pre-pandemic jobs until April 27, so their salaries for the first four months of the year will be covered by the province.

It also helps that the province has put off a long-planned cut to public health funding for 2022 and raised the base funding by one per cent, which works out to an additional $267,300 yearly.

Public health also got extra funding from the province to manage the ongoing pandemic and vaccine rollout. So far it has received $4.6 million of the $8.7 million requested. The rest is expected to eventually follow.

Joanna Frketich is a health reporter at The Spectator. jfrketich@thespec.com