GUELPH – Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph Public Health (WDGPH) has exhausted all the cost-saving and efficiency measures it can and will soon have to look at increasing staffing levels.
Manager of environmental health Paul Medeiros told the board of health on June 4 that because of growth in the region, public health inspectors have pretty much reached the end of doing more with less.
“We are doing more while maintaining quality,” Medeiros said. “When quality drops, we know it’s too much.”
“This is not just food inspectors,” Medical Officer of Health Dr. Nicola Mercer added.
“We’ve seen 22 per cent growth across the board and no increase in staff.
“There’s only so much we can do. We can’t continue at this rate.”
However, Medeiros wasn’t making a pitch to the board to increase staffing levels.
He was there to report on food inspections in 2024, and he pointed out that WDGPH inspectors inspected 100% of the food premises in the region in 2024, despite a 15.6% increase in inspection counts.
There are three types of public health inspections – compliance inspections, re-inspections and complaint inspections – and those results are posted on the agency’s Check Before You Choose app.
Medeiros said 1,821 inspections were conducted in 2024, compared to 1,692 in 2022, and some of those required re-inspections to ensure food establishments had made changes pointed out in the inspection.
On top of that, public health conducted inspections for 150 special events in 2024. Of those, 21 required on-site inspections with a total of 352 individual vendors.
The remaining 129 special events were inspected remotely. Special events include farmers markets, fall fairs and any event where food is served or available for purchase.
And then there’s the demand work, for which WDGPH can not plan.
It could be an outbreak; it could be a complaint about a restaurant; it could be a question about how to safely prepare a food item.
Food inspectors have 24 hours to address these calls.
In 2024 public health received 1,302 food safety complaints, compared to 580 in 2020.
Medeiros chalked up that increase to the growing number of food establishments and the fact that complaints can now be made online.
Food inspectors also certify food handlers that have gone through the course; they have partnered with Food Allergy Canada and now give short talks about food allergens and cross contamination while conducting inspections; and they are working on new protocols now that restaurants must accept customers’ reusable food containers for food orders.
Despite the increased workload, public health inspectors are keeping up because they’ve built efficiencies into their days, such as more remote meetings versus in person; being more strategic about travel to sites; and improvements to documenting systems and practices.
“It comes with a caution though,” Medeiros said, noting they are at a point when more workload will mean a drop in quality.
“We’ve heard that message and we understand there comes a limit,” said WDGPH board chair George Bridge.
He suggested increasing staffing will have to be considered by the board before too long.
