By Hilary Crowley

Sound Off

Physiotherapy Program coming to UNBC 2020

Jun 12, 2019 | 4:58 PM

24^th May 2019 was a very exciting day for Prince George. This is when Hon Minister Melanie Mark came to UNBC and announced that the physiotherapy program would be coming to UNBC in September 2020 for an intake of 20 students. Many of us have been advocating for this program for many years and we are thrilled that this has finally been announced.

Training physiotherapists at UNBC will enable students from the north to enrol in this program rather than have to move to Vancouver or often, to another province or even overseas to be accepted into a physiotherapy program. The only seats for physiotherapy in BC have been the 80 seats at UBC, which isn’t nearly enough to satisfy the therapy needs of our province. Training physiotherapists at UNBC will allow more graduates to stay in the north to address the health needs of our communities. It is well known that training in the north leads to recruitment and retention of northern graduates.

Northern Health has also offered to provide more training opportunities for physiotherapists throughout Northern Health, which will greatly enhance the services to our northern residents. Having the training program at UNBC also allows the program to be tailored to the Northern and Rural communities as well as to Indigenous communities. The Minister announced that this will become a joint program with students graduating with a UNBC/UBC degree which enables UNBC to tailor the program to meet our specific needs.

Minister Mark also announced that there would be an intake of 16 Occupational Therapy students at UNBC in 2022. This is truly heartening and the combined increase of physiotherapy and occupational therapy graduates in BC and specifically from UNBC will ensure that rehabilitation services to Northern, Rural and Indigenous communities will all be greatly enhanced. There has not been equal access to rehabilitation services in our communities compared to southern and urban centres but this announcement will go a long way to address this inequity.

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This news is not only positive for families in Northern, Rural and Indigenous communities as it provides equitable access to rehabilitation services but also it is good news for UNBC. The University is a great asset to our communities and strengthening health sciences programming enables UNBC to tailor our programs to the North to serve our specific health needs. We are happy that Minister Mark identified that this program will become a joint program with UBC and UNBC as this enables UNBC to engage with northern residents and Northern Health to collaboratively meet the needs of the North.

We thank the BC Government and Hon Minister Melanie Mark for bringing this program to UNBC and September 2020 will be an exciting date at UNBC as we accept the first 20 students into the program. They will look forward to graduating in 2022 with their Masters Degree in Physiotherapy and our local communities can look forward to enhanced rehabilitation services for their children, seniors, people living with chronic pain and everyone with mobility issues as well as those with work-related difficulties. Although long-awaited, news of the upcoming program in physiotherapy at UNBC, is most welcome and an exciting and much needed asset to our Northern and Rural communities.