The Chatham-Kent Public Health Unit is getting an unexpected funding boost from the government.
Director of Public Health Teresa Bendo says the health unit was informed earlier this month that it will be receiving additional funding for this year from the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care.
"They have approved an increase of $113,000 to our base budget of the portion of our budget that they fund 75% and the municipality funds 25%,"says Bendo."Also, [they approved] a $202,000 approval of some of the one-time funding requests we submitted."
According to Bendo, the one-time funding requests will go towards improvements to facilities.
"They were for some things that help support making renovations or upgrading some of the facilities," she says. "Some of our programming looked for some funding to augment some of our annual operating dollars."
She says the health unit is still determining exactly where the rest of the extra funding will be allocated.
"There are a number of areas that could always use some help in public health, so we're going to do some thinking about what that will be," says Bendo. "In June, at our meeting on the 21st, we'll submit a report for the board."
Bendo says the board wasn't expecting the funding increase.
"The direction from the province this year was to submit a budget that didn't include those kinds of increases, so that was a little bit of a pleasant surprise," she says.