Frontenac County Council - May 18/22

Jeff Green | May 25, 2022

In the absence of Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) Kelly Pender, Susan Brant, the administrator of Fairmount Home, delivered the monthly CAO report.

Among the items she discussed under the topic of human resources were a shortfall of staff at Fairmount.

“Fairmount Home continues to experience staffing challenges due to COVID and other short-term illnesses,” she reported, “along with 25 open positions including registered nurses, registered practical nurses, personal support workers, cooks and dietary aides.“

She said Fairmount continues to use temporary agencies to assist with staffing, “but we are competing with other local health organisations for temporary health workers.”

The County has posted 233 positions in 2022 for positions at Fairmount Home and Frontenac Paramedic Services, which is also experiencing human resource shortfalls for similar reasons as Fairmount Home.

Among other highlights from the short meeting (25 minutes), which was mostly taken up with passing so called “housekeeping motions”, were two items regarding paramedic services.

The first, which was highlighted in a media statement, that was released immediately after the motion was passed, was a decision to build a new 2 bay ambulance base to serve East Kingston and parts of South Frontenac. The base will be located at the County office/Fairmont Home site, in Glenburnie.

A plan to co-locate a new base with a Fire Hall in the vicinity of Elliott Avenue in Kingston, has been put on hold as the fire hall project is still a few years off. The need for a new location for Frontenac Paramedic Services in East Kingston has been identified as an immediate priority by Frontenac Paramedic Services.

The possibility of co-location with Kingston Fire Services remains open to Frontenac Paramedics.

(See media release below)

one retrofitted and two new ambulances that were supposed to be placed in 2023. This was requested by Chief of Paramedic Services Gale Chevalier because of the delays in production of new vehicles, a COVID related issue that extends to all vehicle production.

“If we don’t get in the queue, we may not see the new vehicles until well into 2024,” said Chevalier.

There are budgetary implications to the request, as 50% down payments are required when ambulances are ordered.

Council agreed to put the order in immediately, using $180,000 from capital replacement reserve funds.

While this meeting was so quick that Warden Dennis Doyle said “What just happened?”, Council is not completely off the hook.

An extra meeting is scheduled for June 8. It will be held to discuss the recommendations that come from a meeting of the Administrative Building Design Task Force on June 1st. The design task force will be receiving bids for the retrofit and expansion of the county office.

The office is being reconfigured for better use by Frontenac County and to accommodate the Cataraqui Region Conservative Authority.

CRCA is in need of new office space as their existing facility at the Little Cat Conservation Area, in rural Kingston, is in need of immediate replacement.