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Published on May 29, 2024 • 3 min read
Brantford City Hall. Photo by Brian Thompson/The Expositor
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The City Council wants to get more information before taking a stance on the proposed merger of Blount County and Haldimand-Norfolk health departments.
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Councillors voted in favour of an amendment stating that the proposed merger cannot proceed without the city's “fully informed consent” and also want the merger postponed until key questions are resolved.
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Furthermore, if the merger proceeds without the city's informed consent, the city will withdraw from the resulting medical facility and will also consider whether to terminate its financial support.
Council members also voted in favor of a key resolution asking city staff to determine how the Blount Health Department could become a department or part of the city's existing government department.
The plan is for the city to convey its concerns to Brantford-Brant MP Will Bouma, Haldimand-Norfolk MP Bobbi Ann Brady, Norfolk Mayor Amy Martin, Sylvia Jones, Ontario's Minister of Health and Premier Doug Ford.
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“We received a high-level outline from the (Brant County) Health Department of what they wanted to accomplish with the merger,” Mayor Kevin Davis, who introduced the amendment, said Tuesday, “but it doesn't address the three major concerns I have.”
Davis is concerned about representation, the state of Blount Health Unit assets and future costs to the city.
The state funds the health agencies, but local governments also incur costs, and Davis estimated that if the Blount, Haldimand and Norfolk health agencies were to be combined, the city could end up paying up to half of the local government costs.
“I think it's extremely important that we have representation on the combined board that is commensurate with what we're paying for,” Davis said. “If we only have one representative and the three districts of Haldimand, Blount and Norfolk each have one representative, that's not going to be effective representation for what we're paying for.”
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Davis said the city should know what will happen to the health department building on Terrace Hill Street before the proposed annexation.
Regarding future budgets, the mayor said Haldimand and Norfolk's population is spread over a large area, making it difficult and expensive to serve residents.
“My concern is that the proposed amalgamation could lead to increased bureaucracy and higher service costs to serve a larger area,” Davis said. “There's a risk that we'll end up paying more for services that are less focused on Brantford and more focused on areas outside of Brantford.”
“We don't have the answers, and until we have the answers, I don't think it's appropriate to decide whether or not to support the proposed merger.”
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In a joint statement at the end of April, the two health boards announced plans to sign a letter of intent to merge as a way to strengthen public health capacity, improve service delivery and connect with a common network of community-based partners.
The committee said the proposed merger is aimed at avoiding forced mergers by the state and utilising the funding provided.
Discussions about mergers have been ongoing since Ontario announced plans in 2019 to reduce the number of health-care facilities across Ontario from 35 to 10.
The proposed merger would be similar to the current merger of two school boards and child welfare services that serve Brantford and Brant, Haldimand and Norfolk counties.
Currently, merging of health agencies is voluntary, but municipalities have been told that regionalization of public health is a provincial priority.
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