Sudburians are getting a clearer picture behind the headline-grabbing salary disclosure of the region's medical officer of health.
According to its figures, staff at Public Health Sudbury & Districts put in more than 61,559 hours of overtime in a single year as it worked to carry out the region's COVID-19 pandemic response.
Among the province's top earners was Dr. Penny Sutcliffe, who earned $800,000 in 2021. The amount includes overtime for two years: $219,000 for 2020 and $263,000 for 2021.
"The numbers, of course, just don't speak for themselves, which is why we issued a news release for transparency and help people understand what's behind these numbers," Sutcliffe told CTV News.
She said she knows these are astounding numbers, but said it speaks to the astounding workload they've faced in the last two years.
"We are a not-so-big health unit over a very big population, so we have about 217 staff and we've more than doubled that over the course of this pandemic," Sutcliffe said.
To top it off, the health unit has been without an associate medical officer of health for more than two years, which meant Sutcliffe has had to wear two hats.
"To paint a picture, I'm up at 5 or 5:30 if I sleep in, at my home office by 6 or 6:30 and not literally getting up -- except for the essentials over the course of that day -- until 8, 9 or 10 o'clock at night," she said.
Ward 6 Coun. Rene Lapierre, who chairs the health unit's board, defended the pay and praised the work staff, including Sutcliffe, have put into our community these past two years.
He knows there's more than a few people out there who are raising their eyebrows.
"Absolutely and I'm happy that the public asks questions because it's what we need -- we need to be accountable -- but I can assure them there was accountability processes in there," he said.
"Every medical office or public health should have an associate medical officer of health of some kind helping out. Because we haven't had any, Dr. Sutcliffe has been working two full-time jobs trying to replace that person."
Lapierre said most medical officers of health don't need to charge overtime and they traditionally haven't in previous pandemics, like SARS or H1N1. But the current pandemic has lasted two years.
"This was a two-year pay out in one year and unfortunately, due to the law of reporting for public sector, it's every dollar remunerated in that year that has to be disclosed," he said.
A lot of Sutcliffe's responsibilities include medical directives, logistical planning and team management.
It's that weary team she's giving a lot of credit to as they enter into this stage of winding down the pandemic and getting caught up on some of the work they missed these past two years.
"So we have to go through our own recovery, as it were, first to make sure people have an opportunity themselves to rest and recover so they can get to this next phase," Sutcliffe said.
"The COVID-19 pandemic response required our Public Health team to work at unprecedented levels, Lapierre added.
"The work demands have been relentless, at great intensity and with much stress. Public Health staff have stepped up with unwavering commitment, but at great personal sacrifice including costs to personal mental health and well-being."
Staff wages, among other costs, are all being covered by the province. Municipal taxes are not impacted.
