Bed bugs, drinking water highlight complaints
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Would you rather have problems with drinking water or bed bugs?
Your answer might determine whether you’d rather live in rural Elgin County or urban St. Thomas.
According to a report done by Elgin St. Thomas Public Health (ESTPH), rural residents are far more likely to have trouble with their drinking water than urban residents.
On the other hand, people in St. Thomas have a much higher chance to get bed bugs.
“We get enough calls about bed bugs that they kind of deserve the honour of having their own category,” said Cathie Walker, director of health protection with Public Health, during a board meeting.
Walker presented a health protection report to the ESTPH Board of Health, highlighting areas of concern for the region.
Other complaints and inquiries were subdivided into more general categories. Those included housing complaints, animal complaints, and drinking water complaints among others, all collected between 2011 and 2016. It’s the first modern, comprehensive service complaints report for the health unit.
“There was this black hole of data,” Walker said, acknowledging a significant gap in public health information. “We wanted to understand the seasonality of the work.”
The data is not airtight, as it was collected over a non-standardized five-year span. And according to staff at ESTPH some data was only tracked electronically -- a problem when analysis was focused on written records only.
But overall the report did its job, Walker said.
“I’ll be the first one to say it’s been imperfect,” Walker added. “But it did sort of affirm many of our (assumptions) about our experience.”
Quick facts
• West Elgin is in serious trouble when it comes to private drinking water. One of the least-populated municipalities in the region, public health nevertheless logged 22 public health complaints from the region between 2011 and 2016 – far more than any other rural municipality. West Elgin also leads in animal-related complaints.
• On the other hand, it’s St. Thomas residents that do the most complaining and inquiring. Between 2011 and 2016 the city registered 63 per cent of all public health complaints, compared to its population (45 per cent). On the other hand Bayham, Central Elgin, and Malahide (combined 32 per cent of the population) only submitted 13 per cent of all complaints and inquiries.
• When Elgin-St. Thomas Public Health is busiest doing their seasonal work – in August – they also get the most complaints. From 2011 to 2016 ESTPH received 120 complaints in August, by far the most of any month. Second was October, at roughly 90 complaints. At the other end of the scale January and December are slowest for public health, with fewer than 60 complaints each.
• People still aren’t reporting radon, which is expected. The natural gas is difficult to detect and affects people over an extended time period. But it’s also the second leading cause of lung cancer in Ontario, and Elgin-St. Thomas Public Health launched a radon detection initiative in late 2017 to get a better idea of which areas are at risk. People without detection kits can inquire about them at 519-631-9900.