The Chatham-Kent Public Health Unit is cutting staff as the first step in dealing with a five-year provincial funding freez, but the general manager of health and family services says there will be little impact on the public.
April Rietdyk says the equivalent of just over three full-time staff reductions are possible because of changes in the way services are provided.
Two contract positions will not be renewed. They worked in the flu immunization program but Rietdyk says there are other ways to get the vaccine.
"With pharmacies coming on board, with family health teams, community health centres, all of those places providing great access for flu immunization we didn't even run clinics last year," she says. "All of our primary care clients have the choice of transitioning to the community health centre and they have the capacity and are able to take all of them."
Rietdyk says one of the cuts is a nurse practitioner position that was created when the area was extremely short of doctors. The other is a health ambassador position that is vacant and won't be filled.
She says the health unit has been working hard to minimize the effect of staff cuts since the funding freeze was announced last October.
