Councillor John Bell provided his fellow County of Brant Council members with an update in regards to the merging of the Brant County Health Unit and Haldimand-Norfolk Health Unit during the regular Council meeting on Tuesday, December 3, 2024.
His update comes after the provincial government officially approved the voluntary merger on Monday, December 2, 2024.
The newly merged organization, which will represent the City of Brantford, the County of Brant, as well as Haldimand and Norfolk counties, will now be referred to as Grand Erie Public Health, and come into effect as of Wednesday, January 1, 2025.
In the Monday news release, Susan Brown, Board of Health Chair for the Brant County Health Unit, said the merger represents a partnership of like-minded health units.
“We’d like to extend our gratitude to the Ministry of Health for their approval of this merger and their commitment to investing in a stronger public health sector,” said Brown. “The decision to merge with the Haldimand-Norfolk Health Unit underscores our collective dedication to enhancing public health services and advancing community well-being. This merger represents not just the coming together of two organizations, but a partnership of like-minded health units, dedicated to building a healthier future for all.”
Also included in the news release was a statement from Amy Martin, Mayor for Norfolk County and Board of Health Chair for the Haldimand-Norfolk Health Unit.
“Our strong partnership with the Brant County Health Unit has allowed us to effectively collaborate with a wide network of community providers, allied agencies, and healthcare pathways across our regions,” said Martin. “Looking to the future, we are excited about our two health units becoming one and firmly believe that this merger will greatly enhance public health capacity, services, and overall impact. We are grateful to the Ministry of Health for this opportunity.”
During Tuesday’s Council meeting, Bell said the idea of merging the health units came after the Ministry of Health announced in August of 2023 that it was looking for smaller health units to voluntarily merge with each other and offered a one-time funding resource if done.
“So we went through a process of looking at potential mergers with Haldimand-Norfolk and also Southwestern Public Health,” recalled Bell. “Ultimately, Southwestern declined to join, but Brant County and Haldimand-Norfolk agreed that it would be in their joint interest to merge.”
He then went on to say that the newly merged health unit will have a total workforce of 200-plus people, and that the headquarters will remain in Brantford at the Public Health Unit building on Terrace Hill.
Bell then went on to describe what the governance for the newly merged health unit will look like going forward.
“Today we have in the Brant County Health Unit, three representatives from the City, two from the County, and four provincial appointees which makes a total of nine. Going forward, there will be two from the City, one from the County, two from Norfolk, and one from Haldimand, and that’s a rough approximation to the population distribution of the four municipalities; it’s not perfect, but it’s about as close as you’ll get,” said Bell. “With six municipal representatives, the Health Protection and Promotion Act will permit up to a maximum of five provincial nominees. We did put forward a couple of people that we thought would be good nominees from Brant, but the idea is to try and get a geographical distribution of these provincial nominees. Currently, all four provincial nominees for the Brant County Health Unit reside in Brantford, so it’s not quite the geographical distribution.”
Bell also said that because the two existing health boards will dissolve on December 31, they will need to appoint a new member of Council to the new board.
Finally, Bell also let Council know that the new health unit will be autonomous, meaning it will be administratively separate from the municipalities they serve.
After his update, Councillor John Peirce said that having a 200-plus workforce is good news for everyone. He also asked if anyone will be losing their position as a result of the merger and Bell confirmed that there will be some.
“Because the Haldimand-Norfolk Health Unit is embedded into the County of Norfolk Council [unlike Brant County’s autonomous unit], some of those positions that are staffed by the County of Norfolk will no longer be required because the function can be provided by the staff of Brant County Health Unit in similar positions,” said Bell. “But [with that being said] the Ministry of Health has been very clear that this is not a cost cutting exercise. Any savings we get, we can reinvest into improved services, and that’s one of the real drives for doing this, that we will have potentially more resources to apply to frontline staff. We’ll have the ability to deal with surge capacity issues, so if we get an outbreak of Foot and Mouth in Norfolk, then we can surge resources from a bigger community.”
He also added that with a larger organization, people who work in the health unit will also have more opportunities to progress in their careers.
According to the news release from the Brant County Health Unit, the full integration of the two health units into a single new entity is expected to take place gradually throughout 2025, and until then, delivery programs will remain the same.
“On January 1, 2025, the delivery of programs and services for the public, in both communities, will remain the same,” reads the statement. “Programs and services will remain available across all of Brantford-Brant and Haldimand-Norfolk regions at current operating locations.”
Kimberly De Jong’s reporting is funded by the Canadian government through its Local Journalism Initiative.The funding allows her to report rural and agricultural stories from Blandford-Blenheim and Brant County. Reach her at kimberly.dejong@brantbeacon.ca.
