Before the coronavirus outbreak hit home locally, the Simcoe Muskoka District Health Unit had been looking at their infectious disease program and how to expand it.
The health unit’s infectious diseases program is responsible for investigating and monitoring all infectious diseases and providing consultation and infection control advice to health-care providers.
The program also assists in the management of outbreaks in community and high-risk settings. Before the first Barrie positive test of COVID-19, the program was already under pressure.
The health unit’s medical officer of health, Dr. Charles Gardner, said that despite shrinking resources, it was one area that was not touched at a recent board meeting that focused on the budget.
“Our budget was really shrinking, in fact it was frozen, which means shrinking as far as resources,” said Gardner. “We’ve had to determine where to cut back in some areas and where not, and we, in fact, did not cut back in that area. We weren’t able to enhance it, either.”
The issues being faced in infection control and critical disease have grown, in part due due to a boost in the region’s population.
Gardner said the health unit is being forced to make changes in order to stay up to date with the recent coronavirus outbreak.
“It is pressed and our way to respond to that now is to reallocate resources from other programs in the health unit to that area to make sure we can respond well to this,” said Gardner.
At the Feb. 19 board meeting, the Board of Health approved a cost-shared budget of $35.3 million for 2020. This year’s budget reflects a municipal levy of $8,983,456.
The board also approved a submission to the province for one-time funding requests totaling $1,866,300, and approved a draw of up to $308,800 from capital reserves for an initiative in Gravenhurst that will allow it to offer dental care services to eligible seniors.
