Scribilo Seeking Provincially Appointed Seat on NWHU Board of Health
As President of the KDCC, Andy Scribilo recently told the Miner and News that he continues to closely monitor Kenora’s public health issues and more specifically, how they relate to – and in the worst cases, impact – the local business community.
According to Scribilo, needles distributed as a part of the Northwestern Health Unit’s (NWHU) needle exchange program remain the bane of Kenora’s businesses, most of which are situated in the downtown core where he says they are most likely to encounter used sharps and other kinds of leftover drug paraphernalia.
With the issue having been a thorn in the Chamber’s side for years now, both Scribilo and KDCC Manager Alexander Evans explained to the Miner that they recently took their concerns to Kenora-Rainy River MPP Greg Rickford, who then directed them to take up a by the books approach to change through the Ministry of Health.
What exactly does this mean? Across Ontario, the Ministry of Health sets what Evans calls “wide” policy guidelines, at which point the province’s various health units and their boards are then free to create more specific and localized policies that speak to their own regions and catchment areas.
Here in Kenora, the NWHU Board of Health consists of eight members appointed by local municipalities and up to three members appointed by the province – but while all eight of the municipally-appointed seats are filled, including one seat filled by Coun. Bob Bernie, all three of the provincially-appointed seats are currently empty.
One of these three provincially-appointed seats is – as you might have guessed – what Scribilo now has his sights set on.
“We want a say from the business side of things,” Scribilo told the Miner at the KDCC office downtown.
“I want to figure out what we need to do to propose changes, because obviously, what we’ve got right now, it’s not working.”
To hear Evans tell it, “it’s not about getting rid of the needle exchange program, it’s about re-evaluating it, because it’s not functioning here the way it is in other communities and public health units across the province.”
To back his claim up, he says that all one needs to do is look at how transmittable diseases are “stabilizing” elsewhere in Ontario, versus how they’ve “doubled” here in Kenora over the last few years.
According to official NWHU statistics, incidence rates for HIV across the region were 12.3 per 100,000 in 2022 and 23.3 per 100,000 in 2023.
In Kenora specifically, the most recent rate averages out to 62.2 per 100,000. Province wide, the average is said to be somewhere around 5-6 per 100,000, meaning that no matter what, the disease is much more prevalent here than it is elsewhere in Ontario.
While the health unit hasn’t released anything official about 2024 yet, back in December it was indicated that only seven cases of HIV were confirmed during the calendar year, suggesting that there has finally been a significant reduction in the spread of the disease, as in 2023 there were a total of 19 confirmed infections.
Even if the rates of infection are now trending in the right direction, Evans is nonetheless adamant that the needle exchange program should be re-evaluated with the city’s business community in mind.
“Harm reduction for one demographic in this community is just pushing the harm onto other demographics in the community. Whether it’s businesses getting needles in their mailboxes, or having to clean them up throughout the day, you’re just putting more people at risk,” he said.
“I don’t want to see the program disappear, because it does alleviate pressure on our already struggling healthcare system, but they need to re-evaluate how they’re distributing the needles and how many of them are ending up on the streets and in the lake.”
Last year, Dr. Kit Young Hoon, the NWHU’s medical officer of health presented to the public at a Keewatin community forum, where she explained the benefits of the health unit’s needle distribution program.
“The key thing with this program is that it reduces the spread of HIV,” she said back in June.
“If we have high rates of HIV in the community, it affects all of us because HIV is also spread through sexual contact.”
Because of the inevitability of the public engaging in what Young Hoon calls “risky sexual behaviour,” especially among individuals aged 15-30, she elaborated that the needle exchange program serves as a protective shield that has helped stop the disease from spreading to people who do not use intravenous drugs.
Young Hoon also explained that as far as the health unit is aware, the majority of the users of the needle distribution program safely discard their needles into sharps containers, and that only a “small sliver” of the population leaves needles lying around town.
“There are a few people who just don’t follow the rules, (but) the vast majority of the people we work with, they are trying to bring back their equipment and use it appropriately,” she said.
In addition to the NWHU, Young Hoon added that the City of Kenora, Lake of the Woods District Hospital, Makwa Patrol (Kenora Chiefs Advisory), and Waasegiizhig Nanaandawe’iyewigamig (WNHAC) are all involved with picking up needles around town – as long as they’re called in and reported.
With HIV investigation and treatment requiring significant resources and imposing massive costs on the region’s healthcare system, Young Hoon made it clear that the needle distribution program saves taxpayers money and prevents medical waitlists from becoming increasingly backlogged.
In the meantime, Scribilo said his next step will be to follow up with NWHU Board Chair Doug Lawrance to see what he needs to do to join.
