The Peterborough County-City Health Unit claimed it couldn’t afford to make overdue pay adjustments in September for its smallest bargaining unit. The question is, does it have the resources it needs to respond to the next big virus?
In September Peterborough residents narrowly avoided the first strike in their health unit’s history. Despite acknowledging significant inequities in how they compensate staff, the Peterborough County-City Health Unit argued they couldn’t afford to play catch-up with the smallest of the unit’s three staff bargaining units. Professional staff at PCCHU were earning as much as $3,000 a year less than internal counterparts with identical job descriptions.
That should be worrying for more reasons than just internal equity.
They key to health reform is to ensure there are sufficient resources upstream so that expensive problems don’t fester downstream.
The PCCHU admits that for some programs there have been no increases in funding for about a decade.
Public Health Units played an important role in limiting the spread of SARS in 2003-04. According its website, Public Health Ontario has been recently working with the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care, the Public Health Agency of Canada and other partners to monitor and provide timely guidance regarding the respiratory illness EV-D68. Should Ebola be confirmed in Canada, public health units will also be called upon to track and stem the spread of the deadly virus.
OPSEU Diablogue 