OPH seeks provincial dollars to address health inspector shortage

Ottawa Public Health (OPH) is struggling to meet inspection quotas of the city's food and health facilities, according to a recent report.

The health agency is asking for increased permanent annual funding from the province to hire six new inspectors. That would meet the demand from Ottawa's growing number of restaurants, tattoo shops, nail salons, supervised injection sites, long-term care homes and more, the report says.

"Public health inspectors are health professionals that aren't as visible. They don't get recognized as much as medical schools and doctors," said Dr. Vera Etches, OPH's medical officer of health.

"There's been expansion of medical schools, but we haven't seen that when it comes to preparing public health inspectors."

According to the report, which comes before city council on April 15, the number of facilities requiring inspection rose eight per cent over the last five years, from 6,848 establishments in 2019 to 7,405 in 2024.

OPH will need to conduct 12,576 inspections this year to comply with health standards, the report noted.

The businesses that aren't being inspected as much as they could be are low-risk ones, OPH said, where there's minimal food handling.

"With additional funding we'd have more capacity to get to some of those lower risk places like gas stations and convenience stores, where food isn't prepared," Etches told CBC. "It's just pre-packaged."

Ottawa's medical officer of health Dr. Vera Etches in August 2022. She says health inspectors play a fundamental role in preventing illness. (Francis Ferland/CBC)

Difficulties recruiting

The sheer amount of land Ottawa covers also poses challenges, Etches said.

"We actually have a lot more geography to cover than other cities," she said. "The time to cover the ground to do the inspections is longer."

New health inspectors have been difficult to recruit as well, she added.

"In Ontario, we only have two places where people are trained, and after they finish their education, they have to do a three-month practicum. There are only so many places where that practicum is funded."

Some of the funding would ideally go toward increasing practicum placements, Etches said.

The average duration of an inspection has also taken longer since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the report.

"There was a high turnover in staff that work in food premises and restaurants," Etches said. "The knowledge about some of these food safety practices has deteriorated."

Since traditional inspection methods are proving more resource-intensive, Etches said OPH is also looking at other ways to address the demand — including using artificial intelligence.

"[That could] help us with different surveillance methods to prioritize where are we seeing the greatest risks," she said.

"We're looking at ways we can help lower-risk premises, even if we're not there all the time."

CBC has reached out to Ontario's Ministry of Health for comment on the funding request.