City of Toronto to close its 4 vaccine clinics after provincial funding ends
Posted November 28, 2023 6:33 pm.
Last Updated November 28, 2023 6:46 pm.
It’s been more than two years since the City of Toronto widely opened its COVID-19 vaccine clinics for bookings, but the municipality’s four remaining facilities are set to close.
Toronto Public Health officials announced its four clinics (Scarborough Town Centre, North York Civic Centre, Cloverdale Mall and Metro Hall) will be closing on Dec. 13. They said it’s being done because operational funding from the Ontario government as part of its COVID-19 response is expiring at the end of the year.
The move comes amid a recent, increased push to get COVID-19 boosters and influenza vaccines.
“The response has been tremendous and certainly our clinics have been fully booked for many, many weeks, and have had a steady flow of people,” Dr. Vinita Dubey, Toronto Public Health’s associate medical officer of health, told CityNews.
She noted the clinics in more recent months have expanded to provide a number of other shots, including ones students need at school such as HPV, hepatitis B and meningococcal vaccines.
Dubey said public health staff are trying to catch up on youth vaccinations not administered because they were redirected for COVID-19 response and during pandemic-related school closures.
“We know that about 250,000 students — so that’s almost 70 per cent of students — according to Toronto Public Health records are missing one or more doses of vaccine,” she said, noting various vaccines can fight against measles, mumps, rubella, diphtheria, tetanus, polio, whooping cough and chickenpox.
“Now that may be because they didn’t get the vaccine because of the pandemic or maybe they got it but they didn’t report it to us … so we want to be able to catch up on all of those.
“We know that some of the risk for some of these diseases continues. We know that measles is still spreading. We’ve actually had cases of measles come to Toronto that come through travel. But we want to make sure that it doesn’t spread — same with polio — so that’s why we have to restart vaccinating.”
RELATED: Toronto ER doctor says winter surge of respiratory illnesses has begun
Dubey said Toronto Public Health staff are looking for $3.8 million from the provincial government over and above base funding to address gaps when it comes to youth vaccinations.
“We’ll continue to provide catch-up opportunities, notifications to parents as we can with some of that base funding, but because we are in a bigger deficit than in usual years we just want to be able to address that as well,” she said.
Ontario NDP MPP and health critic France Gélinas called for more public health funding, saying clinics are vital for families and can better help address issues people may have versus private-sector pharmacies.
“A lot of people trust public health. They will go to a public health clinic and talk to the public health nurse and ask their questions, and make sure that they feel confident that they are making the right decisions for themselves, for their children, for their babies, for their family members,” she told CityNews on Tuesday.
“They have a lot of catching up to do with the school-aged children but they don’t have the resources to do it, so they are asking for a few million dollars … so that they can make sure that school-age kids get the vaccinations they need so that we build herd immunity and protect the weaker, more frail children.”
CityNews contacted Ontario Health Minister Sylvia Jones’ office for comment about the end of funding for Toronto’s clinics when the facilities are still being used. A spokesperson didn’t directly answer the question. Instead, they pointed to past funding for Toronto Public Health programs and one-time grants to help deal with COVID-19.
“Our government will restore funding to the level previously provided under the 2020 cost-share formula and is providing a one-per-cent increase in base funding per year for three years beginning in 2024,” Hannah Jensen said in an email statement.
“This increase in permanent funding each year is in direct response to the asks of public health units, including Toronto Public Health, to the province to provide stabilized funding.”
Jensen said there will also be discussions with public health units in Ontario “to clarify roles and responsibilities to build a stronger, better connected public health system,” but it’s unclear how that might impact the delivery of vaccines.
Meanwhile, Dubey said she and her staff are hopeful extra money will come and emphasized the provincially funded clinics were helpful.
“We do have to recognize that there were some trade-offs in public health and health care (during the COVID-19 pandemic) and so we do actually need to be able to address those as well,” she said.
For those who want to book a vaccine appointment at one of the City of Toronto’s clinics, click here. COVID-19 boosters and flu shots can also be obtained at certain pharmacies.
