Item No. 7.1.4

Null

January 17, 2020

Dear Minister Elliott:

On December 18, 2019, the Windsor-Essex County Board of Health passed the following Resolution regarding Healthy Smiles Ontario Funding. WECHU's resolution as outlined below recognizes the growing need, and increase in dental decay, among vulnerable children in Windsor-Essex and existing barriers to access to care. The WECHU recommends that HSO retain its current funding and structure as 100% funded, merging it with the Ontario Seniors Dental Care Program to be a comprehensive dental care program for vulnerable children and seniors in Ontario:

Windsor-Essex County Board of Health RECOMMENDATION/RESOLUTION REPORT – Healthy Smiles Ontario Funding December 19, 2019

ISSUE

Healthy Smiles Ontario (HSO) is a publically funded dental care program for children and youth 17 years old and under from low-income households. The Ministry of Health introduced HSO in 2010 as a 100% provincially funded mandatory program for local health units, providing $1,529,700 in funding for children in Windsor-Essex (2019). HSO covers regular visits to a licensed dental provider within the community or through public health units.

In April 2019, the provincial government introduced its 2019 Budget Protecting What Matters Most (Minister of Finance, 2019). Following the release of the provincial budget, the Ministry of Health introduced changes to the funding models for health units effective January 2020. The changes in funding for local health units include a change from a 25% municipal share, 75% provincial costshared budget for mandatory programs to 30% and 70% respectively. In addition, the Ministry notified health units that formerly 100% provincially funded mandatory programs such as HSO would now share these costs with municipalities at the rate of 30%, a download of approximately $458,910.00 to local municipalities.

BACKGROUND

Oral health is vital to our general health and overall well-being at every stage of life. Most oral health conditions are largely preventable and share common risk factors with other chronic diseases, as well as the social determinants of health, such as income, employment and education, whereby those in the lowest income categories have the poorest oral health outcomes. Approximately 26% of children (0-5 yrs) and 22.6% of children and youth (0-17yrs) in Windsor