THURSDAY, june 13, 2019 Vol. A-75, No. 24
Serving Fort St. John, B.C. and Surrounding Communities
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Garry Oker and the Doig River Drummers lead the city’s inaugural Moose Hide Walk through downtown Fort St. John, calling for an end to violence against women and children June 5, 2019. For more on the story, turn to A5.
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A new school to train nurses in Northeast B.C. has been given the green light. Advanced Education Minister Melanie Mark was in Fort St. John Friday to make the historic announcement of a new nursing degree program with the support of $1.1 million in funding. The news comes after more than a decade of advocacy from local education, health, and civic leaders dating back to at least 2002. “After years of advocacy, I’m thrilled to announce the green light for the first-ever nursing degree program in the northeast,” Mark said to the applause of more than three dozen hospital staff, students, and local officials at the hospital. “I can talk you about what it took for me to get here, but I didn’t get here without your advocacy, and everyone coming together with your hard work, passion, stressing the importance of having accessible education in all areas of our province.” The funding will support a five semester, two-year Bachelor of Science in Nursing program based in Fort St. John that will train 32 students a year at full capacity. The first class of 16 students is expected to start in September 2020. The program is a partnership between the University of Northern British Columbia, Northern Lights College, and Northern Health. It will be operated out of Northern Lights College. Students must have 60 university transfer credits to apply for the program. Priority seating will be given to NLC and indigenous students.
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Advanced Education Minister Melanie Mark and Peace River North MLA Dan Davies high five during the announcement of a new nursing degree program in Fort St. John, June 7, 2019.
“We come here with a commitment to offer the best nursing program that we can,” Dr. Dan Ryan, provost and vice-president academic, for UNBC. An estimated 24,200 nurses will be needed over the next decade in the province. Northern Health estimates an average of 78 registered nurses per year will be needed in the northeast over the next four years to fill staffing gaps. Officials say the new program will help with recruitment and retention, address emerging localized needs, and have an impact in the region for generations to come. “When we educate people from the north in the north, they will stay in the north,” said Edward Stanford, Northern Health board director. Northern Health has committed to make practicum placements available for students, Stanford said. “Northern Health looks forward to the day when we can hire the new graduates from this program.” More than three dozen people crowded the hospital foyer for the announcement,
including staff, students, and city, provincial, and regional district officials. Mayor Lori Ackerman said the nursing program is vital for the future of Fort St. John. City council became active in the file during the doctor shortage years ago, she said. “We saw nurses getting burned out because there was no one covering shifts. When you’re a professional in this kind of environment, you just can’t say, ’No, there’s not going to be a nurse on that ward’,” Ackerman said. “We recognized that and that’s when we decided we really needed to advocate for nursing school here.” MLA Dan Davies said it was exciting to see years of hard work finally come to fruition. Local education matters, said Davies, noting he graduated from the AHCOTE program at Northern Lights College to become a teacher. “I’ve worked with so many colleagues in the northeast that went through that program and stayed here,” Davies said. “This is what it’s about. It is truly about training local people who are going to stay.”
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Fort St. John city council wants to a hold a public forum to discuss the 231 recommendations coming from the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls. At their meeting on Monday, council directed city administration to prepare a report on the costs and logistics involved in hosting the forum with neighbouring First Nations. The forum would look to how the city and community can take action on the report’s recommendations. “What can we do as a community to address (those recommendations)?” Mayor Lori Ackerman said. The national inquiry’s final report was released last week after years of study and testimony documenting the causes and impacts of violence of against indigenous women and girls. Among the report’s 231 recommendations are calls for a national Indigenous- and human-rights ombudsperson and a national Indigenous- and human-rights tribunal, increased funding for education, health and wellness programs and services aimed at indigenous women and girls, and improved public transportation in rural areas. The inquiry also raised concerns about the “urgent need” to consider the safety of Indigenous women in all stages of resource extraction projects. The city will need to gauge the interest and willingness of First Nation communities in participating, Ackerman said. Ackerman noted there’s grant funding available through the Union of BC Municipalities to host a community to community forums, Ackerman said, noting she sees the community discussion being more than just one event. The biggest cost would be bringing in an expert to explain the report and its recommendations, Ackerman said. Last week, more than 150 people took part in the city’s first annual Moose Hide walk calling for an end to violence against children. The city also took part in a reception in Victoria hosted by Lieutenant Governor Janet Austin to commemorate the release of the inquiry’s report. Missing and murdered Indigenous women are believed to number in the thousands in Canada, but the national inquiry’s report says that despite the commission’s best efforts to quantify the extent of the tragedy, “no one knows an exact number.” See FORUM on A11
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