{"id":21940,"date":"2025-07-25T01:56:07","date_gmt":"2025-07-25T01:56:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/21940\/"},"modified":"2025-07-25T01:56:07","modified_gmt":"2025-07-25T01:56:07","slug":"p-e-i-expands-marion-l-reid-grant-to-include-students-in-4-more-health-care-programs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/21940\/","title":{"rendered":"P.E.I. expands Marion L. Reid grant to include students in 4 more health-care programs"},"content":{"rendered":"

The P.E.I. government is taking steps to ease some of the financial pressure on more\u00a0Island students enrolled in post-secondary health-care programs.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Marion L. Reid grant, which began last year,\u00a0is expanding to include four more health-care programs in an effort to increase the number of workers in those\u00a0fields.<\/p>\n

Starting this fall, the\u00a0grant will be available to Island students enrolled in 13 health-care programs, with the addition of\u00a0occupational therapy, physiotherapy, paramedicine and dentistry.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“It’ll make a big difference in our students,” said Sandy MacDonald, president and CEO of Holland College.<\/p>\n

“As things become more expensive and inflation is a problem, our students are increasingly coming to us for help financially.”<\/p>\n

WATCH | P.E.I. expanding student grants to include more health programs:\"\"<\/p>\n

P.E.I. expanding student grants to include more health programs<\/p>\n

The province is expanding its Marion L. Reid grants to include more programs like dental assistance at Holland College and paramedicine at UPEI. The Dental Association of P.E.I. says its members have struggled to provide care due to the Island\u2019s increasing population. CBC\u2019s Tony Davis has more.<\/p>\n

The grant is open to P.E.I. residents, and students\u00a0are eligible to receive it following\u00a0each academic year completed in an eligible program<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The program can be taken at approved schools elsewhere in Canada or abroad, but the student must return to the Island to work in their chosen field for at least two years after graduating.\u00a0<\/p>\n

MacDonald thinks\u00a0the\u00a0expanded support will entice more students to stay in P.E.I. to study.\u00a0<\/p>\n

One of the school’s biggest challenges is the affordability of its\u00a0programs. Macdonald said Holland College’s tuition is among the highest in the country.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Island students make up about 53 per cent of the college’s population, but MacDonald hopes\u00a0that percentage will rise to the 60-65 per cent range with the incentive of this new funding.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

“If we can keep the cost down and manageable, then we’re going to see more Island kids come to Holland College,” he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

‘A\u00a0lot of patients’<\/p>\n

Jenn Redmond, P.E.I.’s minister of workforce, advanced learning and population, said adding additional financial support will encourage more students to pursue a higher education and ultimately fill more jobs on the Island.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“We will help with your studies and then essentially you’ll come back and work in the field in\u00a0P.E.I. and add to our workforce for our health-care programs,” Redmond said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Wendy Rodgers, president and vice-chancellor of the UPEI,\u00a0said the\u00a0university’s paramedacine program being included in the grant program\u00a0will help build more capacity in the health-care industry and ease pressure on the province’s emergency rooms.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“We’re really excited to have that program included because we are interested in growing that program and making sure that we are able to contribute to the full spectrum of health care available on the Island,” Rodgers said.<\/p>\n

“People have different levels of needs with respect to their health care and they need to have well-qualified, prepared professionals to go to for each of those components.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"ADr. Mike Connolly, a Charlottetown dentist and president of the Dental Association of P.E.I., says the increased funding will hopefully mean more dentists on the Island. (Travis Kingdon\/CBC)<\/p>\n

The CEO of the Dental Association of P.E.I. said the province’s growing population means dentists can’t keep up with demand \u2014 and the education required to become a dentist does not come cheap.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Dr. Mike Connolly\u00a0is hopeful that with this funding will draw\u00a0more Islanders into careers in dentistry.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“There are a lot of patients and not as many dentists, and the care does not happen unless we have dentists and support staff,”\u00a0Connolly said.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The P.E.I. government is taking steps to ease some of the financial pressure on more\u00a0Island students enrolled in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":21941,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[49,48,84,392],"class_list":["post-21940","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-health","tag-healthcare"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21940","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21940"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21940\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21941"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21940"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21940"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21940"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}