The Thunder Bay and Northwestern Health Unit will become one entity due to a decision by the provincial government to consolidate 35 public health units into 10 regional agencies by 2021.
The government says the decision was made to reduce health-care bureaucracy and overlapping administration duties.
Medical Officer of Health for the Northwestern Health Unit Dr. Kit Young-Hoon thinks the decision will increase travel costs across the health units.
“So when you think about our regional board that covers such a large geographic area, even though you might use things like video conferencing and tele-conferencing, it can still have an impact on travel costs.”
She says they are still in the early stages and do not know what that means for jobs at the Health Units.
The medical officer adds she doesn’t think the regional decision would save the government money.
“Our organizations are very lean organization, we don’t have a directive level within our organization, many of the managers have more that what is considered best practice with respect to number of staff that report to them.”
