RENFREW COUNTY WARDEN'S REPORT

Renfrew Reeve and Renfrew County Warden Peter Emon gave a report on County news and initiatives as part of Renfrew’s latest council meeting and, at around twenty minutes or so in length, I thought I was at serious risk of losing consciousness, not because of the information or its delivery, but more having to do with the air quality in the council chambers. My brain kept registering the importance of each topic, not just to the County but to the town as well, but my autonomic nervous system kept pulling me towards the netherworld of sleep through a lack of quality oxygen. Kudos to all the planning and engineering people who were arrayed on that part of the room to intervene with their comparative level of expertise and training to stave off a mass-casualty event by fiddling with the controls mounted on the wall directly behind them. Full marks to Directors Withers and Bishop for keeping us all in the game.

It would have been somewhat ironic to require paramedics to attend a meeting discussing paramedics. Like, where else do you get entertainment like this, especially for free.

The Warden’s report is important not only for its content, but also as a reminder that the town benefits from its relationship with that $240 million corporation that is the County of Renfrew. So there ought to be a level of curiosity within our own council as to the goings-on at the County level.

PARA-MEDICINE

Para-medicine has played a key role in the roster of emergency services, here and everywhere else. But in a largely rural riding with significant distances between service areas and health care hubs, paramedics face challenges in places like Renfrew County that are different from the other, more densely settled areas of the province.

One of those challenges comes in the form of funding, while another presents in the area of paramedic training.

As to the first, para-medicine funding seems to come from several budget lines from different provincial government ministries, and this can cause seams where service delivery can be impacted by vagaries that pop up in separate ministries that may impact the ability of the County to respond to situations that are inherently unique to it owing to its geographic reality.

Reeve Peter Emon, who also serves as Warden of Renfrew County, stressed that, in the County’s view, it would be a big improvement if funding for para-medicine were to be more stable, and more predictable. While that’s true, and having funding come from a single and easily defined source would be preferred and ideal, trying to explain that to a government ministry intent on protecting its jurisdiction is a completely different matter, and notions of common sense have no bearing when a minister is protecting his/her turf. Still, the effort stands as an important one to make, because no effort will guarantee no change, whether in funding models or in anything else.

Renfrew County paramedics have been instrumental in the Mesa project which emphasizes pro-active intervention by emergency service workers in the homeless and addiction crisis that is currently a major feature of living in a place like Pembroke, the County seat.

Pro-active intervention means going to where your clients are before you need to respond to where your clients are, and it makes a huge difference in terms of successful rescues and relieving a huge burden on already over-worked and overwhelmed emergency departments in hospitals. It also decreases the possibility of needing to admit a patient in crisis and taking up a hospital bed, something that’s expensive in more than just dollars.

This approach is not followed in every jurisdiction, which by itself is a bit of head-scratcher, in fact a huge head-scratcher. Like other institutions, including police services, there is a a certain and significant level of silo-building, where Pembroke and area can be doing one thing, while the jurisdiction on the other side of the fence does something completely different, or in our case, and with respect to the police, nothing at all.

The second area the County focussed on was the idea that a professional college should be established in para-medicine, where the profession is governed by a professional body like lawyers, nurses, teachers, that sort of thing. In addition, the County would like to see para-medicine be a four-year post-secondary program, where agreed-upon standards are taught and enhanced.

Today, when a paramedic goes to work, delivering primary and critical health care in the field is just one of several hats they appear to wear, but in the case of homelessness and addiction, there’s a huge component of what otherwise might be considered as social work involved. No, it’s not part of the job, but yes, it’s part of the job because it can’t be escaped from. Sometimes, oftentimes, you have to be a little bit of everything in order to do the job you showed up to do. It’s absolutely unavoidable so long as you’re dealing with people, much less people who are marginalized, desperate, afraid, and even dangerous, both to themselves and to others.

MESA

To MESA specifically, the Warden shared the information that the program instituted in Renfrew County last June has been a major success in that, while not solving the problem of addiction-related death and homelessness completely, it has significantly contributed to an appreciable mitigation of the problem, especially in the Pembroke area where the program is in effect.

Mr. Emon pointed out that there had been approximately 1400 health-related interventions made by paramedics since that time, and that’s led to 35 people receiving extensive out-of-County care leading to those people being re-integrated into the community via forms of semi-supervised living arrangements. The County has asked the province to pony up $2.5 million to continue to fund the program with two teams of paramedic and mental health workers detailed specifically to carrying it out.

At the recent ROMA conference down in Toronto — Rural Ontario Municipal Association — the Warden and and lead paramedic Chief Michael Nolan, Chief of Paramedic Services and Director of Emergency Services, conducted a workshop attended by over 200 people and resulting in 20 requests for the Warden and Chief to bring that presentation to their own jurisdictions. This is reflective of the fact that the MESA program is a novel one in the province, and that Renfrew County is at the forefront of efforts to have models like this more visible around the province.

With that in mind, the Warden shared that the province had just recently announced the commitment of $6.4 million for the next three years to fund a treatment service in Renfrew County, part of an overall investment of some $597 million across the province.

The Renfrew County investment will build upon alliances with McKay Manor, Pembroke Regional Hospital, and Pathways to address detox efforts in the community, and is intended to include a home with some 35 beds that will deal with detox needs for people for varied lengths of time. Again, it doesn’t pretend to solve everything, because that’s not possible anyways. But it does take a significant step in the right direction, and is another initiative that seems to be catching the attention of other jurisdictions.

It will also result in the hiring of some 30-40 full-time positions.

COUNTY HOUSING STOCK: SENIORS

Reeve Emon went on to speak on the topic of inter-generational housing, which to my un-educated ear sounds like housing intent on servicing the needs of seniors, since his briefing referred to efforts either undertaken or planned for Renfrew’s Bonnechere Manor and Pembroke’s Miramichi Lodge, both facilities involved with long-term care of seniors.

According to Mr. Emon, the County is going through the preparatory steps of building 25-30 units of housing on the campus of Bonnechere Manor, with a similar effort being planned for the campus of the Miramichi.

The County, like other levels of government, isn’t exactly awash in unused or un-spoken for cash, so entreaties will be made to the keepers of the vault at the provincial level for funding to assist in these endeavours.

PRO-ACTIVE PARAMEDICINE

In an almost perfect combination of the first two items, the Reeve/Warden spoke of the efforts made by paramedics to make visits to seniors in their homes as well as regular visits to long-term care homes.

Again, this was presented as something that’s just smart to do, and the effort would help protect provincial government assets like hospital emergencies and wards from being overwhelmed by a rapidly aging population.

Further, it allows seniors who are ambulatory or more or less self-sufficient to receive supports that allow them to age in place and live their so-called golden years at home rather than in long-term care.

As our population grows top-heavy with boomers, dealing with them becomes something that enters into any paramedic’s work day, even if not specifically listed in a job description. It’s assumed that training in an area such as this would be something that dove-tails with the County’s thoughts that there ought to be a four-year program for paramedics.

HOUSING

The County is proposing to follow a model thy pursued with respect to paramedic bases in the area, whereby the County built a number of bases and then leased them back to the province.

Reeve Emon suggests this can be done with housing as well, with the County building housing stock and then leasing it back to the province.

Renfrew County is populated mostly along two main transportation arteries, Highway 417/17 and Highway 60, and one of the off-shoots of this is the lack of a roster of developers who can move in and build a number of houses while dedicating 20% of them as affordable housing.

The County has approached the government with the idea of creating a Municipal Housing Corporation which would take on the task of building housing units in developments of various sizes, which would then be leased back to the County of Renfrew. The County has identified 200 units being built over a five year period as being a marker of a successful program.

Renfrew County is currently taking one of its residential units from the 1950’s, taking it down, and replacing it with three brand new units, creating a 3:1 return for the province.

HIGHWAY 417/17

With respect to the extension of Highway 417 into this part of the Valley, the Warden indicated that it’s not the preference of the County to consider the extension from School Drive to just past Bruce Street in Renfrew as a single tendered project.

That approach would likely be more susceptible to delay given the stretch of distance involved and the number of interchanges likely to be needed. Mr. Emon and County officials have made efforts to convince the MTO — Ministry of Transportation Ontario — to consider that stretch of extended highway as a number of tendered projects, with the first being the extension from Scheel to just past Miller Road. Chunking it up like this makes things more do-able and less likely to be delayed because of a larger scope requiring larger dollars. As well, this extension would be logical in terms of Scheel Drive being the current terminus of 417 right now, as well as that stretch being a relatively straight shot with no potential environmental issues to hold it up.

Perhaps most importantly, it would be viewed by the County as a sign of good-faith from the province. Another good-faith indicator is the fact that this bit of extension is already fully funded, as per the Deputy Minister and the Parliamentary Assistant to the minister.

As to the County itself, as a landowner, being a potential barrier to extension, Warden Emon suggests that any land in question be expropriated as needed.