Chatham-Kent council will vote on whether a strategic healthcare fund should be added to next year's budget Monday night.
Councillor David VanDamme is bringing forward a motion at Monday night's council meeting, recommending that a special strategic healthcare fund be established in the 2019 budget to equal 0.25% of residential taxes or approximately $300,000.
According to VanDamme, there are gaps in ministry funding for clinical capital equipment and physician recruitment.
"I wanted to create a very special fund that would allow rural hospitals and our existing hospitals to tap into a specialized strategic fund to help with some of their needs, well as our family health teams to tap into a pool of money to bring in good doctors in Chatham-Kent, because we have a shortage here," explains VanDamme.
He says he wants to provide continuity to what existed before amalgamation.
"We don't have any mechanism or no guarantees in place right now to offer sustainability or continuity to health care requirements for some of our smaller rural hospitals, such as Four Counties or the Leamington hospital...or even to provide assistance for some of the bigger campaigns," he says.
VanDamme says the municipality's Resident Retention and Attraction team has found that 92% of Chatham-Kent residents feel that healthcare is an important factor in residing here.
"Nobody wants to see taxes raised," says VanDamme. "But if you could put a quarter of a percent of taxes towards something that's real, something that can identify and touch and everybody needs at some point in their life...then that's a good thing."
