Councillors cautious as paramedics funding remains uncertain
Adam Bramburger
Beaver Staff
Lennox and Addington County will be spending $75,000 a year over the next decade to support capital upgrades at regional hospitals in Kingston.
In council’s second budgetary session last Wednesday evening, councillors continued to discuss a request from the University Hospitals Kingston Foundation (UHKF) for $200,000 a year over five years. The money was to support the 20-year reconstruction of a tower at Kingston General Hospital to allow for new emergency and operating rooms, a state-of-the-art laboratory, a new floor for pediatric and women’s medicine, and a more efficient offloading area for ambulances.
Last month, the UHKF’s associate director Monica Kahindo told council that on average there are over 69,232 visits from Lennox and Addington residents to the KGH, Hotel Dieu, and Providence Care hospital sites, a number that increased by 90 per cent in 10 years. Also, she said the hospitals provide jobs for 728 residents with an economic impact of $48.7 million each year.
Stone Mills councillor John Wise started the discussion by suggesting the County match its previous 10-year commitment of $100,000 annually, which ended in 2017, and add a cost of living increase of about eight to 10 per cent to reflect the changing dollar value.
The number was too rich for his peers, however.
“The 10-year commitment makes sense and at $50-60,000 a year, that allows us to contribute to our local hospital, doctor recruitment and things like that, rather than overburden the ratepayers,” Tony Fritsch, of Addington Highlands, said.
Napanee’s Marg Isbester said “I do think we should look after our own area as well.” While she supported Wise’s suggestion of 10 years, Isbester also said she’d like to see a smaller denomination between the one-time grant of $60,000 the previous council pledged in 2018 to $75,000. She said while councillors might make a firm commitment, they could also adjust the number higher if there is a time within the next decade when council feels it can afford more. Her focus now, she said, is that municipal tax dollars support emergency medical services the County is tasked to provide.
“My biggest concern at this point is we’ve got to ensure our entire community is covered with ambulance bases. We don’t know if we’re going together the funding, even, for what we’ve done in Stone Mills. We hope it’s going to be there,” she said. “That base is very important for our health services. We also have to be able to look at Loyalist, if not for this year, then to make a plan for next year.”
Beyond that, Isbester said with the Province working on health reforms there may be additional needs locally.
“My other fear is we don’t know what’s going to come from the Ministry of Health as far as rolling all these (Local Health Integration Networks) together. Our hospitals, overall, are going to be handed very different duties,” she said, wondering aloud if there may be differing needs to pay for within the county.
Much, it appears is in flux as the County waits to learn about the Doug Ford government’s vision for health care and even for whether it will continue to fund ambulance services in the same manner.
According to the County’s director of financial and physical services Stephen Fox, the County received a little over $3.4 million from the province for ambulance services. That’s arrived at by taking 50 per cent of the previous year’s budget, plus an inflationary escalator. Conservatively, that’s one per cent. Thus, Fox said this year’s budget is $3.75 million, based on an increase to 12 hours of coverage in Stone Mills for half of last year. That pays for operations and staffing of bases in all four lower-tier municipalities as well as capital contributions to equipment and bases, like the new Stone Mills site. If the money doesn’t come through, there could be a cash crunch to consider.
Addington Highlands councillor Henry Hogg agreed with Isbester.
“Last year, we decided that we were going to commit to our own needs in the county and I would certainly support that — and it’s not that I have anything against the university hospitals, they provide a good service.”
Council supported Isbester’s motion to approve $75,000 annually over 10 years. Loyalist’s Ric Bresee declared a conflict of interest and did not participate in the discussion. Although councillors had been advised they might want to put conditions on their gift surrounding build timelines, none were included in the motion.
According to Fox, the addition of $75,000 for the hospitals would push the County’s tax levy up about 2.5 per cent over last year