Familiar face back in charge of Haldimand-Norfolk Health Unit
The Haldimand-Norfolk Health Unit has locked in a familiar face as top doctor for the two rural counties.
Six years after last serving as the area’s medical officer of health, Dr. Malcolm Lock is back on the job.
Lock started on June 30, the health unit said in a press release on Wednesday.
He previously held the post from 2007 to 2018 while simultaneously serving as medical officer of health for Brant County and the city of Brantford.
Lock left Haldimand-Norfolk in April 2018 and retired after wrapping up his stint at the Brant County Health Unit the following September.
Now the public health veteran returns to replace Dr. Joyce Lock, who herself came out of retirement to serve as Haldimand-Norfolk’s interim medical officer of health in March 2023.
In a statement, Norfolk Mayor Amy Mayor, who chairs the board of health, thanked the outgoing Dr. Lock for “stepping up in a time of need” while welcoming the incoming Dr. Lock back to his old job.
Despite sharing a surname, the two doctors are not related.
Haldimand-Norfolk’s top doctors became nationally known during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Dr. Shanker Nesathurai — who succeeded Lock in 2018 — was criticized by farmers who chafed at what they called overly onerous rules for quarantining migrant farm workers upon their arrival to Canada.
Simcoe fruit farmer Brett Schuyler took Nesathurai to court over the health unit limiting quarantining workers to three per bunkhouse, regardless of the size of the living space.
Schuyler’s appeal was initially successful at the review board level, but a higher court confirmed Nesathurai’s policy.
After leaving Haldimand-Norfolk, Nesathurai landed at the Windsor-Essex County Health Unit, serving as acting medical officer of health, a role he now holds in Chatham-Kent.
Dr. Matt Strauss, who followed Nesathurai in 2021, was an outspoken critic of lockdowns, vaccine mandates and community masking as effective measures against COVID-19.
Strauss’s last day was March 31, 2023. That November, he secured the nomination as the next federal Conservative candidate in the riding of Kitchener South—Hespeler.
J.P. Antonacci, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, The Hamilton Spectator
