Health PULSE

Partners United in Local Solutions for Everyone is taking an evidence-based approach

At last week’s council meeting, CAO Marcia Wallace explained that a team of senior municipal leaders have joined together to try and help tackle local health care challenges and, ultimately, create a loud voice to lobby the provincial government for resources.

“We all know there’s a problem, but how do we fix it?” said Wallace. “We can’t fix it by hoping, and we can’t fix it in our separate silos. That’s really what initiated a partnership.” Wallace shared that CAOs from Belleville, Quinte West, Hastings County and Bancroft, as well as upper leadership from Quinte Health Care and Loyalist College will be working towards a solution.

“We are working together to better understand what is driving the local health care crisis we are all facing and hopefully will then enable actions that will make a difference,” added Wallace.

Traditionally, each municipality works on its own, which means competing for funding as well as doctors. The group will now collaborate together advocating for the needs of the Quinte region.

Wallace went on to explain Health PULSE is about taking an evidence-based approach to look at high rates of emergency room visits, doctor shortages, population growth and the senior demographic. According to statistics collected by the group, the region’s four hospitals serve roughly 170,000 people and 70 per cent of the population is likely to use more health care resources than if they lived elsewhere in the province. “While our hospitals are doing a great job in serving the community, they can’t do it alone. Our residents are some of the highest users of hospital services in Ontario.”

Wallace told Council that while local hospitals are doing their job of filling the gaps, they were designed to provide acute and trauma-based care, but they are doing so much more providing services that are better suited to a family doctor, long-term care or other community services that may not exist to support the local demand. She also noted that with the County’s expected population growth, the group needs collective strategies as the statistics show local health care demands are growing three times faster than the current local population.

“We need the provincial upper levels of government to appreciate what we’ve learned and come to the table as a partner. And we believe speaking as one voice working together, and not in competition, we will begin to get some attention from the province,” said Wallace. “In rural Ontario we need to rethink and redefine rural health care and see it through a rural lens.”

A symposium and meetings with Ontario’s Minister of Health will take place in July.