With rent at the Burk’s Falls Medical Centre either free or subsidized and no formula for partner townships to share the costs, village taxpayers are the financial backstop for the facility.
The Almaguin Highlands Health Council (AHCC) wants to create ways to help Burk’s Falls cope with the regular deficits the municipality incurs at its medical centre, instead of townships providing financial support on an ad hoc basis.
Armour Mayor Rod Ward, also the chair of the AHCC, said the goal is to deal with the deficit more formally.
Ward said that in the past, the health council has discussed ways to help the municipality but “never fully landed on anything.”
The Village of Burk’s Falls owns the medical centre and receives no money from the Ontario Ministry of Health to operate the facility. That information is contained in the municipality's report, Proposed Ownership and Long-Term Funding Model, which was discussed Nov. 7.
See related: Municipal tug of war over aging medical centre
The report was created to reduce costs and create long-term efficiencies by having mutual agreements with the other nine Almaguin Highlands communities that belong to the health council.
The report also aims to re-engage the Ministry of Health on the issue of providing funding to the health centre.
The medical centre provides space for several services and healthcare providers. The report states this space is offered at either a subsidized rate or at no charge.
For example, Muskoka Algonquin Healthcare does not pay rent to supply the medical centre with an X-ray unit and a blood work lab.
Ward said he understood the rationale for providing subsidized rent or no rent at all because the communities want to be able to retain health care providers and services.
“It’s great that they’re doing that,” Ward said.
Burk’s Falls Mayor Chris Hope said he would prefer that the member communities of the health council become shared owners of the medical centre, which would help with the annual deficits.
But, Sundridge, Strong and Joly have their medical centre in Sundridge, and communities like Armour and Perry have rejected the idea of owning part of the medical centre.
Hope said the current informal practice has been that when the medical centre runs a deficit, Burk’s Falls sends letters to the member municipalities asking for money to help pay the shortfall.
Ward confirmed that. He said, over the years, the other nine municipalities have helped Burk’s Falls with the medical centre deficit, but the help has been ad hoc.
Hope’s fallback is a shared stewardship option, where the municipalities ante up funds without Burk’s Falls having to send regular requests for donations toward the deficit.
From 2019 to 2023, the medical centre’s annual deficits totalled more than $205,000 and a combination of Burk’s Falls' taxpayers and contributions from the surrounding communities helped pay off those annual deficits.
Ward said the plan for the next health council meeting is to bring forward two or three different possible scenarios or formulas for calculating how each municipality can tackle the regular medical centre shortfalls.
At the Nov. 7 health council meeting, Ward suggested one possible formula is based on a municipality’s property assessments.
But Ward said whatever option is decided upon, it will be strictly a health council recommendation and does not bind any municipality to do anything. Each of the nine municipalities would have to discuss the recommendation at their respective council meetings.
Ward said the solution needs to be one that all the municipalities are comfortable with.
Additionally, the municipalities will need a mechanism for getting budget estimates from Burk’s Falls annually, so that these estimates can be factored into the individual budgets that the town councils approve each year.
The next health council meeting is on Dec. 5.
Rocco Frangione is a Local Journalism Initiative reporter with Almaguin News. The Local Journalism Initiative is funded by the Government of Canada.
