The Grey County administration building in Owen Sound. (file photo)
Grey County will be providing $1-million to Georgian College to support the launch of its new nursing program.
County council approved a recommendation at its meeting on Thursday to provide the contribution to Georgian College from the county’s Healthcare Initiatives Reserve.
Georgian College is preparing to implement a new four-year Honours Bachelor of Science nursing degree that will be offered at its Owen Sound and Barrie campuses starting in September 2022.
The college will be performing a $7.1-million upgrade to its campus in Owen Sound to create a 9,200 square foot nursing and wellness wing, which will include the latest simulation technology, artificial intelligence capabilities and healthcare equipment to provide students and others with real-life learning and training experience.
Grey County’s Chief Administrative Officer Kim Wingrove told county councillors on Thursday the provincial government has granted approval to Georgian College for the four-year nursing program and will fund its operations, but the capital costs to get the program up and running are the responsibility of the college.
She says Georgian College has begun a public fundraising campaign and requested $1-million from Grey County as part of it.
The nursing program coming to Georgian College’s Owen Sound campus is the first to be implemented in Central Ontario, according to a report by Wingrove. It’s expected to graduate 105 nurses annually by 2026.
Grey County played an active role in lobbying the province to allow colleges to be given nursing degree granting ability, meeting with ministers at several ROMA and AMO conferences in recent years to push for the change.
“As we all know, forecasts show that health human resources are in a critically short supply,” Wingrove says. “That is forecast only to become more acute in the future. Having a program close to home means placements can be in our facilities rather than larger urban centres, and we have a better chance of securing new graduates in our healthcare facilities.”
Georgian College President and CEO MaryLynn West-Moynes told Owen Sound councillors at a meeting in September that healthcare providers in Bruce, Grey and Simcoe counties provided resource projections in 2019 that estimated a need to hire 4,300 nurses over the next decade to replace those retiring and to accommodate growth.
Several county councillors spoke in support of the $1-million contribution at Thursday’s meeting and the need for the county to get behind efforts to address healthcare staffing shortages.
“We have a critical shortage of health professionals right across the province, if not the country at the moment,” county councillor and Southgate Deputy Mayor Brian Milne says. “Anything we can do to support generating more health professionals at home, I think we need to support.”
County councillor and Meaford Mayor Barb Clumpus: “I’m very excited about the possibilities that this has for many facets of need in our community throughout Grey County, not the least of which is nursing and the education of nurses close to home. Speaking with the (president and CEO of Grey Bruce Health Services Gary Sims) last week, he was absolutely convinced he would sweep up all of those nurses that were graduated within a heartbeat. There is lots of room there for new nursing students to come in.”
Wingrove says the local program at Georgian College in Owen Sound will also be more accessible to residents looking to upgrade their skills.