OPH giving virtual support to schools as pandemic nurse program ends

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Ottawa Public Health says it remains committed to supporting schools in the city as a provincial program that brought hundreds of public health nurses into Ontario schools during the pandemic — dozens in Ottawa alone — is set to end next month.

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In June, Ottawa will lose those 45 nurses who were hired on temporary contracts. But officials at the city’s public health agency say it plans to continue a focus on schools — albeit with less staff and a fixed budget.

Once the provincial program ends, Ottawa Public Health will have two nurses working directly with school boards and will integrate others into immunization or infection prevention and control teams, said Esther Moghadam, its director of health promotion and chief nursing officer.

Before the pandemic, OPH’s school health program included 16 nurses. Moghadam said OPH would restore the service level it had before the pandemic, “but in a different way and, I am hoping, a better way.”

OPH received $2.2 million during the 2022-2023 school year for 45 “school-focused” nurses. That was part of a $50-million provincial program that brought 500 public health nurses into Ontario schools. It was later increased to a total of 625 school nurses through additional federal funding.

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That program was widely praised. It was aimed at easing the return to school after pandemic shutdowns. Public health nurses did contact tracing and testing as well as infection prevention and control. The program always had an end date of June 2023, public health officials say.

Next, OPH will focus on maximizing “existing base budgets” to continue to provide students with in-school immunizations and dental screenings. It will also support schools with infection and prevention control, Moghadam said.

Some of that school support will now be done virtually as OPH refocuses its efforts in a post-COVID-emergency world.

As part of the post-pandemic shift, OPH plans to have more digital health education and teacher-training sessions “in an effort to increase our reach to more schools and more students,” Moghadam said.

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OPH also says it will continue to work with school boards “to ensure every student knows where to turn for reliable, evidence-informed health information.”

The agency is undergoing a shift to put more resources into neighbourhoods and populations where needs are greatest, one of the lessons learned during the pandemic, when research underlined that less-advantaged residents and neighbourhoods were harder hit by COVID-19.

Much of that support is focused on neighbourhood health and wellness hubs in less-advantaged neighbourhoods. Moghadam said those hubs would work with the school health program “to provide public health support where it is needed most, including mental health programming.”

Moghadam said that would include focusing on the highest priority schools in less-advantaged areas. There are about 15 neighbourhood health and wellness hubs in Ottawa.

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She said the two nurses working directly with the city’s four school boards would collaborate with the boards to focus on priorities, including immunization and mental health.

Moghadam said some of that work would require digital tools allowing everything from online training to live chats with teachers. In addition, teams of nurses will be in the schools for immunization and to respond to any outbreaks, she said.

“I don’t want people to think we are not in schools. We are still in the schools.”