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Fanfare for new health career centre
Mac Olsen
for Spotlight
Northern Lakes College’s new Health Careers Learning Centre in High Prairie will help meet the growing demand for practical nurses, emergency medical technicians and other certain health care staff in the area.
But it will also allow students living in the community and surrounding area to remain with their families while completing their education.
Such pronouncements were made during the centre’s grand opening ceremony Feb. 23. Dignitaries included Rick Neidig, the college president and the CEO; Glenn Monteith, the assistant deputy minister of the Health Workforce Division of Alberta Health and Wellness in Edmonton; and Chris Noskey, the president of the Northern Lakes College Student Association and the student representative for Peavine Métis Settlement.
Neidig highlighted what the college has been doing for programming over the last few years and how the centre fits with its overall plans.
“This facility is important to increasing local access and increasing our visibility,” says Neidig.
“But it’s not our only access point for health care programs. We continue to offer programs in High Level, Athabasca, Peace River, Wabasca and other communities across the region. Our measure of success is based on improving access and graduating students in numbers that match local employment markets.”
The benefits for High Prairie include students being able to stay at home while completing their education. Also, the centre has quality programs certified by professional organizations such as the Alberta College of Paramedics.
But the biggest benefit will be having graduates stay in their communities.
“Graduates that take programs here are more likely to stay and work at local hospitals, continuing care centres and so on,” says Neidig.
He also praises the faculty for the program development. Besides the practical nursing and emergency medical responder programs offered currently, the centre will offer an emergency medical technician program and a medical receptionist program in the fall of 2010.
The other campus facility in High Prairie, which is across from the UFA gas bar, will continue to offer the programs it has been offering, he adds.
Monteith also spoke and extended greetings on behalf of Health Minister Gene Zwozdesky, who couldn’t attend.
Monteith says his division administers several pieces of legislation and a lot of the programs offered by the college meet the standards set by the Health Professions Act.
“The College of Licensed Practical Nurses, for example, all of the standards which this institution will teach are codified in their regulations under that act,” says Monteith.
The Health Disciplines Act ties in with the emergency medical technicians, he adds.
“It’s all about making sure that we empower people to do the work for which they’re absolutely and ultimately capable of providing.”
He also says his division is supportive of the types of training and technology post-secondary institutions like the new centre uses.
“We’re just thrilled to see this innovative learning model. We’re very big supporters of the use of simulators.”
One is the advanced life support simulator, which Trevor Davies uses.
He is the emergency medical responder and emergency medical technician instructor and showed Monteith how it works during a tour of the centre later.
The EMT and EMR programs are important for building capacity, Monteith adds. The provincial government wants to expand the use of emergency medical services personnel to handle primary care calls.
“You could easily have an EMT provide primary care on a home call, as opposed to (putting) them in the back of an ambulance and whisking them off to a hospital. We want to empower them so their skills can be more fully utilized; those are the kinds of things we’re working on.
"Part of the issue is to get more of those skills in the community, to take advantage of them,” says Monteith.
Noskey praised the centre as convenient for local students, who won’t have to go elsewhere for their training.
“From the students’ perspective, it’s good they will be able to go home to their families every night and not have to leave their home communities for post-secondary education,” says Noskey. “It’s a stumbling block for many.”
It’s also a great opportunity for High Prairie and other communities, he adds.
“To have this in high Prairie, it opens the door to all kinds of other educational and economic opportunities.”
Later, the ribbon cutting ceremony was held in front of the building, with Andy Assaf, a board member, doing the honours. Then everyone was invited for a tour of the centre.
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Northern Lakes College’s new Health Careers Learning Centre in High Prairie is officially open. Many dignitaries were present for the ribbon cutting ceremony Feb. 23. Front row, left-right, are Scott Biggin, faculty-nominated representative for the college’s board of governors; Sandra Willing, a member of the board of governors; Chris Noskey, the president of the Northern Lakes College Student Association and the student representative for Peavine Métis Settlement; Andy Assaf, a college board member; Jule Asterisk, the student-nominated representative for the board of Governors; Glenn Monteith, the assistant deputy minister of the Health Workforce Division of Alberta Health and Wellness; Rick Neidig, the president and CEO of the college; and Mayor Rick Dumont of the Town of High Prairie. In the middle row, from left, are Leigh Davies, secretary to the board of governors; Archie Cunningham, vice-chair of the board of governors; and Tammy Riva, vice-president of the Northern Lakes College Student Association. At the far back is Colin Ross, the staff-nominated representative to the board of governors.
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