The Board of Well being for Kingston, Frontenac, Lennox and Addington (KFL&A) Public Well being met on Wednesday, Sept. 28, 2022, for the primary time since taking a summer season hiatus.
The assembly started with a welcome message and land acknowledgement by Board Chair Denis Doyle.
Doyle remarked on a latest celebration held in honour of employees and volunteers, the place Dr. Kieran Moore, Chief Medical Officer of Well being for the Province of Ontario, recommended KFL&A for having the province’s lowest COVID-19 fatality charge and excessive vaccination uptake.
Dr. Piotr Oglaza, Medical Officer of Well being for KFL&A Public Well being, then introduced a assessment of Public Well being’s summer season actions, which he referred to as “a few of the precedence ticket work that we’ve launched into with our employees.”
“After we take into consideration the times of summer season, that’s the time lots of people take a break. However that is the busiest time for our environmental well being compliance inspections… We continued with routine inspections of protected ingesting water methods, inspections of meals premises, [and] rabies prevention and management investigations, and in addition we participated in a lot of inspections of amenities that needed to do with leisure programming [like swimming pools],” Oglaza defined.
To ease the transition for households as college students return to a extra common college yr, KFL&A Public Well being and the Maltby Centre have created a ‘digital toolkit’ for households that focuses on getting “again to fundamentals” to assist household psychological well being. To order your copy of the toolkit, e-mail [email protected].
Infectious illness management outreach was additionally a summer season precedence, mentioned Oglaza. With the decreased deal with pandemic emergency response, KFL&A Public Well being was capable of associate with Addictions and Psychological Well being Companies — KFLA to offer an outreach service to individuals requiring addictions and psychological well being providers or another well being care, “to fulfill them the place they’re locally” for testing, screening, and remedy of sexually transmitted ailments.
In Oglaza’s phrases, “We had been capable of detect circumstances that in any other case may need not been examined [and] had been capable of then hyperlink people to care to offer therapies. That optimistic facet of this strategy will proceed.”
Public Well being has additionally been capable of deal with catching up with the backlog of normal college immunizations that had been pressured to halt due to the pandemic response. Oglaza identified, “We’ve completed clinics using the present infrastructure of mass immunization clinics… Through the occasions of much less demand for COVID vaccine, we reworked these mass clinics… to usher in grade seven college students who had missed their [regular] vaccine earlier within the yr.”
And whereas that program continues, Oglaza mentioned, you will need to keep in mind that vaccines nonetheless stay the simplest measure in stopping the unfold of COVID-19, which “will stick with us for any foreseeable future.”
Preparations are additionally beneath means for the administration of the common influenza vaccination program, with Public Well being readying its vaccine provide to fulfill demand and planning for vaccination packages. Oglaza inspired the general public to organize for the upcoming winter season by queuing up for each Covid and flu vaccinations.
On a unique subject, the Board acquired a advice from Susan Stewart, Director of the Neighborhood Well being and Effectively-being Portfolio and the Wholesome Communities Workforce, as regards to fossil fuels promoting.
Stewart acknowledged, “On June 8, 2022, the Canadian Affiliation of Physicians for the Atmosphere (CAPE) revealed an open letter to 5 Members of Parliament, together with the Minister of Atmosphere and Local weather Change, and the Minister of Well being. This letter urges the federal authorities to deal with fossil gas promoting equally to tobacco, as each industries pose vital dangers to public well being.”
“Direct and oblique well being results from fossil fuels have been well-documented, demonstrating a major menace to public well being,” defined Stewart. “Whereas ads from the tobacco business have been banned because of the well being dangers of business tobacco, burning fossil fuels, which additionally pose vital threats to public well being, has not been subjected to comparable rules. Moreover, though present rules in Canada prohibit companies from making false or deceptive claims, greenwashing by fossil gas industries continues to happen.”
After some dialogue of the data introduced, the Board voted to assist Stewart’s advice on local weather advocacy by endorsing the Canadian Affiliation of Physicians for the Atmosphere’s open letter on fossil gas promoting. As effectively, they are going to ship a letter indicating that KFL&A Public Well being has made this endorsement to: Mark Gerretsen, MP for Kingston and the Islands; Scott Reid, MP for Lanark-Frontenac Kingston; Shelby Kramp-Neuman, MP for Hastings-Lennox and Addington; Loretta Ryan, Govt Director of the Affiliation of Native Public Well being Companies; and all Ontario Boards of Well being.
