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Check upon delivery
Bonsoir,
You will appreciate that because of the
unusual length of time since we last met, and the busyness of the last few
months on a number fronts, my update tonight will be a little longer than
usual. I will touch briefly on provincial matters, promising federal
developments, some programmatic changes, and recent changes at the municipal
level. All have implications for our work. First, though, I want to note
formally my pride and congratulations to you, our governors, to our senior
leadership team, and to all of our employees and partners for the achievement
of Exemplary Status in OPH's first full accreditation cycle with
Accreditation Canada. There is always work to do in the ongoing pursuit of
excellence in our work, but this result of a rigorous peer review process is
gratifying, and gives us a clear base from which to develop our next Quality
Improvement Plan. I thank Chair Qadri for your kind words to our team tonight
too.
Provincial Updates
As we have discussed, the provincial
government is active on many fronts relating to health at the moment. First,
I want to remind you of their current review of the Ontario Public Health
Standards. The province has advised that they intend to consult on a
draft set of revised standards in the next few months. This will provide an
opportunity for input from local public health practitioners and Boards. Past
experience suggests that when the consultations happen, and it is likely to
be sometime in the next several months, a short turn-around time will be
required. We are planning to have a response to the consultations, and I will
keep you abreast of developments and opportunities for your possible input.
Also, as I mentioned in June, the
Ministry of Children and Youth Services is undertaking a third party review
of the Healthy Babies, Healthy Children program. That process is underway,
and OPH has been solicited for our perspectives on needs and challenges. We
are anticipating that we may learn of the findings by the end of the year,
and are assuming that this review will inform the Ministry of Children and
Youth Services as it develops future expectations and funding plans for that
program.
As an aside, I anticipate that any
changes to the Ontario Public Health Standards, will lead also to
changes in Boards of Health’s performance indicators. Your current
performance indicators and the progress in meeting them are detailed in the
accountability agreement report before you later this evening. Over the years
the numbers of indicators and target expectations from the Ministry of Health
and Long-Term Care have steadily risen, and I suspect the next iterations of
the Accountability Agreement will be no different.
All this to say, really, that looking
ahead to 2017 and beyond, it is unlikely to be business as usual for
Ontario’s local public health units. I anticipate that OPH will be needing to
review our organizational approach and operations as we adjust to what may be
significantly different and new program standards and accountability
measures.
We will also be needing to adjust to
other new legislative requirements. These range from expected changes to the
food safety regulations as well as new requirements around menu labelling in
certain restaurants, through to major changes in health care system delivery
by Local Health Integration Networks (LHIN) and Community Care Access
Centres.
In terms of health system change, earlier
this month the province reintroduced, after the summer prorogation, an
amended version of the Patients First Act, 2016. This is now Bill 41.
Several sections of the proposed legislation (9, 13 and 39) make specific
reference to health units. We will be required to engage with the local LHIN
on issues related to health system planning, funding and service delivery.
Precise operational and cost implications of these requirements are not yet
clear, but we will continue to monitor these developments and assess
potential impacts and opportunities.
Federal developments
Now, our work is also impacted by actions
and intentions of the federal government. We will be discussing later the
work we have been doing to prepare for changes in the approach our society
takes to marijuana. Also, in September, the Government of Canada announced
its intention to extend the Federal Tobacco Control Strategy to address
vaping products in Canada.
Lastly, pertaining to the federal scene,
it’s worth noting that two private member’s bills have recently been
introduced – one in the Senate and one in the House of Commons - to address
the issue of marketing of foods and beverages to children. This Board has
previously supported the intention of the government to restrict marketing of
unhealthy food and beverages to children, so seeing movement on this front is
encouraging. We will be monitoring this issue closely and exploring ways that
we can help ensure progress on this issue.
Programming
Moving to some developments in our
programming - recall that Grade 7 boys are now eligible for publicly funded
HPV (Human Papillomavirus) vaccine in Ontario. We have now started
vaccinating boys as part of our school immunization program. The logistical
challenges implicit in expanding the operations to this cohort are being
overcome and as of the end of September we had vaccinated almost 900 boys
since the school year started earlier that month. During this school year, we
will be offering the HPV vaccine to all boys and girls in grade 7 and to all
girls in grade 8. That is a total of about 15,000 eligible students, and I
urge those students to avail themselves of this opportunity.
The immunization team is also continuing
to fully enforce the Immunization of School Pupils Act. Warning
notices regarding school suspensions will begin to be mailed for schools
later this week and we expect some school suspensions may be taking effect
between January and April of 2017.
Also, with respect to immunization, in
September the province allowed us to implement its plans to provide the
shingles vaccine to Ontarians aged 65-70. The vaccine is now available to
the public through physicians’ offices.
Influenza season is also now here. During
last year’s flu season, OPH administered over 10,000 influenza vaccines at
community clinics, and distributed nearly 400,000 doses of the vaccine across
the City through physicians’ offices, pharmacies, long-term care facilities
and other vaccine providers. For the 2016-2017 flu season, we will again
focus on providing access to flu vaccine to the general population through
physicians’ offices and pharmacy providers as well as outreach to vulnerable
populations. As in previous years, OPH will continue to run community-based
clinics in areas of low pharmacist /physician coverage.
Now, two quick updates with respect to
things we discussed at the last meeting. Firstly, regarding the opioid
overdose situation that has galvanized attention across the country, we are
working closely with partners in emergency rooms, police, paramedics and the
coroner’s office to closely monitor what is on the streets by way of illicit
drugs and to try to rapidly warn our drug using community when we have word
of new developments. You may also have seen that last week, the province
announced that it plans to implement a comprehensive opioid strategy to
prevent addiction and overdose – we will likely be called on to participate
in that strategy as it evolves locally.
Secondly, further to your recommendations
in June, City Council enacted a by-law to prohibit the use of water pipes in
enclosed public places in Ottawa. The way Council proceeded has the by-law
coming into force on December 1, 2016, with a four month warning phase
leading up to April 3, 2017.
We have informed affected stakeholders
and the general public of these changes, and later this month, along with
city Bylaw & Regulatory Services staff, we will be conducting educational
visits to each of the establishments known to use water pipes to answer any
questions owners may still have about bylaw implementation.
Further, since Council passed the
regulation related to water pipes, we have received re-assuring news about
the court application against the City of Toronto prohibition of hookahs in
licensed establishments. The presiding Judge found that enactment of the
by-law was within municipal powers and declined the request to overturn the
City’s by-law. This decision reinforces that the courts view the enactment of
by-laws by municipalities to address public health matters, on the
recommendations of Boards of Health, as legitimate and appropriate.
City Restructuring
I want to end by commenting briefly, from
my perspective, on something that has been of concern to our employees, and
of interest to many of you, and that is the City of Ottawa’s recent
organizational realignment and related personnel changes. We were not
surprised to learn of change at the city, as over the preceding five months
Ottawa’s new City Manager had engaged in extensive outreach to seek input
from stakeholders, including OPH employees, to inform decisions. Of note,
though, the city’s independent boards were not a part of the realignment
exercise. Immediate operational implications for OPH, while by no means
trivial are, therefore, relatively minor. They relate predominantly to the
need to adjust some projects to accommodate employees returning from
elsewhere in the municipal service, and to the need to develop relationships
with new partners in areas such as Drinking Water Services, especially, and
also Parks and Recreation, social services, emergency services and our shared
services support groups.
That said, the ongoing provincial and
recent municipal changes will create both opportunities and imperatives, in
2017, to think about ways to increase organizational effectiveness and to
find efficiencies in order to work within our allocated budget. Our team
knows that, and is ready for the challenges ahead.
Merci beaucoup. That concludes my report.
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