The Huron County Health Unit honoured many of its community partners with a luncheon at the health unit this week.
Acting Medical Officer of Health Dr. Maarten Bokhout explained, "We're in the business of reducing the disease burden in this community and making this a healthier community, but we realized a long time ago that we can't do it by ourselves, we need help from a variety of community partners and this was an opportunity to formally recognize the contributions they've made to helping us to achieve this."
He said the luncheon and recognition ceremony was just one way for officially thanking the community partners for their contribution to the success of the entire team.
Dr. Bokhout said the demands on the system seem to grow every year as our population ages and requires more care, and as technology improves the level of care also does, but also requires specialized maintenance. He says even with the health unit, it wasn't that long ago when the didn't have an epidemiologist, and now they have three.
"We've got a much-enhanced information technology department," he said. "Right now if you don't have computers which are hooked up together and serviced and looked after by people who know what they're doing, you almost can't function."
Dr. Bokhout said without the collaborative effort within the health unit and within the community, they would not be able to provide the care that they do.