Georgian President and CEO Brian Tamblyn, Barrie MP Patrick Brown and Aileen Carroll, MPP for Barrie, along with hundreds of staff, students, corporate donors and community supporters, today celebrated the groundbreaking for Phase 1 of the College’s new Centre for Health and Wellness.
The project received federal and provincial funding totalling $40 million through the Knowledge Infrastructure Program (KIP) and Ontario’s 2009 Budget. Other investments came from the City of Barrie ($5 million), County of Simcoe ($400,000) and other donors to Georgian’s Power of Education Campaign.
The new 165,000-square-foot building will facilitate a collaborative, interprofessional, team-based approach to health sciences education and will include leading-edge laboratories and technology enhanced classrooms.
Teaching health clinics will provide student work experience while offering needed health care for students and the public. When complete, enrolment will grow by 1,800 diploma and degree students.
“The first phase of the College’s new Centre for Health and Wellness will address a number of vital healthcare priorities in our region,” said Tamblyn. “It will help us meet the continuing demand for enrolment growth in both diploma and degree Health Sciences programs at Georgian and our University Partnership Centre. These highly-qualified health care professionals are urgently needed in our growing communities.”
Teaching and learning in the classrooms, labs and clinics will support interprofessional education methods, allowing students from a variety of health sciences programs to work together on patient care.
“The new clinics will facilitate a collaborative team approach. Students from Nursing, Dental Hygiene, Dental Assisting, Opticianry, Paramedic, Pre-Health Sciences, and Massage Therapy programs will all learn and work together for the benefit of patients,” said Dr. Cassandra Thompson, Dean, School of Health and Wellness and the School of Child Studies.
First-year Paramedic student Beverly Halliday (pictured) says the new health and wellness building will allow her classmates to practice real-life scenarios and improve their ability to perform right out of school.
“Along with access to state-of-the-art equipment and high-tech classrooms, the expansion also means that we’ll have the opportunity to work as part of a team,” she said. “The new building will bring us together physically and allow us to practice basic scenarios in paramedicine in a realistic environment. This will help us become more employable when we graduate.”
The Centre will provide about 400 new full- and part-time jobs for staff and faculty, bringing a $16-million increase to Georgian’s payroll.
Economic impact of the construction alone is approximately $98 million, equivalent to the effect of a mid-sized corporation moving to Barrie.
Construction is expected to be completed by September 2011.
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