Assiniboine celebrates grand opening for rural rotating Practical Nursing Training site in Morden

Assiniboine Community College celebrated the grand opening of its rural rotating Practical Nursing Training site in Morden today.

“Assiniboine’s ongoing expansion of its practical nursing program in both permanent and rural rotating sites will allow more students to become certified in this high-demand health-care occupation,” said Manitoba Advanced Education, Skills and Immigration Minister Jon Reyes. “Being able to attend training closer to home increases participation rates for rural students, which aligns with our government’s Skills, Training and Knowledge Strategy, supports our commitment to add 400 new nursing seats to meet Manitoba’s health sector needs and complements our health human resource action plan to retain, train and recruit more nurses.”

The site welcomed nursing students earlier this week, and the college marked the opening of the new rotating site today, with an event that welcomed nursing students and staff, Minister Cameron Friesen, and partners from the City of Morden and Southern Health Santé Sud.

“Assiniboine continues to be responsive to Manitoba’s labour market and support economic growth by meeting community needs. Our rural rotating Practical Nursing training sites answer the call on both of these priorities, and it is a pleasure to celebrate a new site in Morden,” said Mark Frison, president at Assiniboine. “We thank our partners in community, healthcare and government for ensuring we can offer more training opportunities, increasing the number of qualified nurses in the workforce to address the healthcare labour shortage.”

The college will be in Arborg later this month to hold a grand opening of its rural rotating site that opened in September.

“Expansion of the rural rotating Practical Nursing diploma program in our region brings us one step closer to meeting the increasing demands to fill nursing positions. We are thrilled to partner with Assiniboine Community College and the City of Morden to expand this program to Morden,” said Jane Curtis, CEO of Southern Health-Sante Sud. “This goes a long way in providing accessible post-secondary options in the eastern part of our province. This program is now offered in three locations in the Southern Health-Santé Sud region – Southport, Otterburne, and Morden.”

Practical Nursing is the largest single program of study at Assiniboine, with 100 per cent of graduates surveyed reporting they had jobs. Since 1975, more than 4,200 individuals have graduated from nursing programs offered by the college.

In addition to rural rotating sites, the college has permanent Practical Nursing programs at its campuses in Brandon, Winnipeg, Dauphin and Portage la Prairie.