Perth County's Medical Officer of Health is concerned with an expert board report suggesting the province merge six health units in Southwestern Ontario.
Dr. Miriam Klassen says the report addresses issues like expertise in small health units by reducing the number of health units in the province from 36 to 14 public health entities.
She says the new public health entity would line up with the Southwestern Local Health Integration Networks, which were set up on medical referral patterns.
"Referral patterns for sick people moving through the system, from their family doctor to specialists, and then hospitals, and then tertiary hospitals. And having said that, Public Health works on primary prevention, keeping people healthy, you can see that that's not those referral patterns, and those boundaries don't make as much sense for us," says Klassen.
Klassen adds public health units would lose the local connection necessary to address community health issues.
The report suggests combining Grey-Bruce, Perth, Huron County, Middlesex-London, Oxford and Elgin. She says that is a huge region with a very diverse population.
Klassen says 75% of the determinants of health are not in the healthcare system
"And the biggest part of that are the social determinants of health such as income and education. And so our partnerships that we have with municipal ties, and school boards, and children aid, and many other community partners, are really important to our work," she adds.
She says the health units are already required and do work with LHINs.
Klassen feels the report was aimed at solving the problem of lack of capacity at smaller health units. But she says things like staffing and expertise can be addressed without such a dramatic and costly change.
She adds health units have been under a funding freeze for three years while taking on new mandates, and that alone can affect their ability to properly do their job.