Five health units covering an area from Windsor to Sarnia to Woodstock will soon become a single entity encompassing more than a million residents.
Windsor-Essex County Health Unit board chair Gary McNamara says this comes as no surprise as the Ontario PC budget included a plan to reduce the number of health units from 35 to 10.
The merger, which includes the Windsor-Essex County Health Unit, Middlesex London Health Unit, Lambton Health Unit, Southwestern Health Unit and Chatham-Kent Health Unit, is expected to be fully implemented by the end of 2021.
McNamara says, at this point, there are more questions than answers as to what will happen to staff and office locations in each city.
"We all knew from the budget that they were looking at merging health units, reducing them from 35 to 10. How are all of these systems going to be managed because we're all a little bit different. The funding models for each are different and with the amalgamated portion, we're going to be a population of over a million."
He says the work has just begun.
"Lots to think about, lots to do, lots to integrate, we've got a lot of work to do, but most importantly, we want to make sure that the residents in each and every one of those communities are well served, well governed and well protected."
Tecumseh Mayor Gary McNamara. (Photo by Peter Langille)
McNamara says finding efficiencies is going to be harder than the PCs think.
"Not as much as I think the government thinks there are going to be because of the fact that we're so entrenched into our communities. There might be the upper level, some mergers there in terms of jobs. But at the end of the day, I don't think there's going to be that much of a displacement."
McNamara adds, one major change that has been confirmed is a shift in the health unit funding model.
As it stands now, 70% of funding comes from the province with municipalities contributing the remaining 30%.
McNamara says after the merger is complete, the ratio will change to a 60/40 split putting more pressure on already strained municipal budgets.
The province is expected to host consultations with each health unit over the next few months.