Officials at the Windsor-Essex County Health Unit are looking forward to a time when they can focus on services neglected during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Nicole Dupuis, Chief Executive Officer of the health unit, says the majority of their resources are still tied to dealing with the pandemic and vaccination efforts.
Dupuis says many of the areas they've had to strip the most resources from during the pandemic are more on the prevention side of public health, healthy growth and development, family areas and mental health.
"The healthy family department is normally a team of around 40 people including several managers, which at one point was down to three people during the pandemic," she says. "They haven't had more than 10 people supporting their healthy family department during the pandemic, which includes the home visiting program, healthy babies and health children programs."
Dr. Shanker Nesathuari, Acting Medical Officer of Health, says we also need to rededicate and refocus resources to those using substances and a risk of dying as a result of those actions.