Healthcare Initiatives
Overview:
The Government of Ontario manages the health-care system. The municipality’s role is to advocate to the provincial government for the needs of our community, in collaboration with other municipalities and organizations in the Quinte and Hastings Prince Edward regions. The municipality also participates in and gives funding to regional and local health organizations and initiatives.
These efforts are in line with Council’s Community Health priority within the Strategic Plan.

Municipal health-care activities:
Physician recruitment
The shortage of family doctors is a problem for municipalities across the province and the country.
The County of Prince Edward is the primary funder of County Docs Recruitment and Retention program. The municipality is working with County Docs and the Prince Edward Family Health Team to plan for future medical office space needs. Find out more about the County Docs program here, where you can also subscribe to its newsletter and find out how the community can help with recruitment efforts.
Residents without a family doctor
The municipality is not involved in finding family doctors for residents. Residents must contact Health Care Connect to join the waitlist for a doctor.
To help address the province-wide family doctor shortage, the Prince Edward Family Health Team regularly offers some services to patients without a doctor, such as cancer screening and immunization clinics. Learn more on the Prince Edward Family Health Team’s website, Facebook page or by calling 613.476.0400.
Quinte Health also has information here about medical care for residents who don’t have a family doctor, such as walk-in clinics, virtual care options and common ailments that pharmacists can prescribe for.
Finding long-term solutions to health-care issues
The municipality is actively involved in regional organizations advocating for improvements to the health-care system overall and to establish a local pipeline of health-care workers:
- Hastings Prince Edward Ontario Health Team (HPE OHT) – Partnership of Hastings, Prince Edward County and Tyendinaga health and social service providers, municipalities, patients, clients, caregivers. You can watch the HPE OHT’s July 2023 presentation to Council here.
- Partners United in Local Solutions for Everyone (PULSE): Prince Edward County, Quinte West, Belleville, Hastings County, Quinte Health, Loyalist College. You can watch the July 2023 PULSE presentation to Council here.
Health-care investments
In addition to the investment in physician recruitment, the municipality invests financially in local health care:
- 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. The new 96,000 square foot, leading-edge hospital is scheduled to open in 2027.
- Hastings Prince Edward Public Health: All municipalities in the Hastings/Prince Edward catchment area provide annual funding to public health. Two councillors from Prince Edward County sit on the Board of Health that oversees HPEPH.
- 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
Staff Contact
Emily Cowan
Director – Community Services, Programs and Initiatives
Phone: 613.476.2148 ext. 2501
Fax: 613.471-2050