Municipal healthcare activities:

Healthcare Services Working Group

• The Healthcare Services Working Group is a municipal working group that makes recommendations to the Community and Economic Development Commission and, through them, to Council.
• The HSWG created the Physician Recruitment and Retention Task Force to develop a new family doctor recruitment program. In the 2022 budget, Council allocated $150,000 to support physician recruitment for Prince Edward County. These funds are managed by the Prince Edward Family Health Team and their Physician Recruiter.
• The municipality successfully partnered with the Prince Edward Family Health Team to run a recruitment program for several years before this new investment and approach was implemented in response to a more competitive physician recruitment environment.
• The HSWG coordinated a recent Healthcare Survey to learn about healthcare use, needs and barriers, including in-home and virtual healthcare.  The survey background and report is available on Have Your Say.

Healthcare investments

• In addition to the investment in physician recruitment, the municipality invests financially in local healthcare:
  • • Prince Edward Memorial Hospital – Back the Build: The municipality is a supporter of the “Back the Build” campaign to build a new hospital for Prince Edward County. The municipal pledge of $4.5 million, payable over multiple years, was an early commitment that helped kickstart the fundraising campaign.
    • Hastings Prince Edward Public Health: All municipalities in the HEPH catchment area provide annual funding to public health, and two Councilors from Prince Edward County sit on the Board of Health that oversees HPEPH.

Hastings Prince Edward Ontario Health Team

• Prince Edward County’s Chief Administrative Officer is a member of the Hastings Prince Edward Ontario Health Team formed in 2021.
• Ontario Health Teams are being introduced to provide a new way of organizing and delivering care that is more connected to patients in their local communities. 

COVID-19 vaccination efforts

• Since March 2021, the municipality has partnered with the Prince Edward Family Health Team and Hastings Prince Edward Public Health to facilitate COVID-19 vaccination clinics in The County.
• The municipality provided space for mass vaccination clinics, a local assessment centre, and coordinated locations for pop-up clinics. County staff coordinated volunteers to support the healthcare professionals at the clinics, and staff from all departments contributed hundreds of hours working at the vaccination clinics.

Community health and wellness

• The municipality provides funding to The County Foundation’s VitalSigns data bank which tracks quality of life in our community based on a number of indicators.
• The municipality is also responsible for creating and implementing the Community Safety and Wellbeing Plan, which was approved in the Fall of 2022.
• Physical and mental health is just one indicator of community wellbeing; The County Foundation’s VitalSigns work and the Community Safety and Wellbeing Plan recognizes the interconnectedness of factors such as poverty, housing, food security, education, justice and transportation as influencers of community health and wellbeing.