UPEI medical school launch delayed a year

Health P.E.I. CEO Dr. Michael Gardam says he's pleased a new medical school at UPEI is being delayed by a year.

Plans for the school were announced five months ago, and it was scheduled to open in the fall of 2023 — that has been postponed till fall 2024, Education Minister Natalie Jameson revealed in the legislature Wednesday in response to a question from Opposition Green MLA Lynne Lund.

"I don't think that we should be approaching a medical school as an absolute emergency that we have to rush through," said Gardam Thursday.

"I'm very happy that we're talking a year later."

The Opposition's question was prompted by there being no money for the medical school in the provincial budget, which was tabled last week. Last year there was $4 million in the budget, and the estimated cost over six years was $129 million.

"It was just October where we had a big event and it was announced that this was going to open in 2023. It's only been a few months and already the plan has changed a year back," Green MLA Trish Altass said.

"It's disappointing that that had to come out as a gotcha moment today, that like, we had to ask about it and nobody knew about this."

'Quite a ways to go'

Even meeting the timeline of fall 2024 will be challenging, Gardam noted. 

One of the biggest challenges will be hiring staff who want to practise medicine on P.E.I. and also want to be part of the medical school's academic realm, Gardam said. 

"That's going to take time. Part of the reason it takes time is we don't have the greatest reputation out there, and so we may have a hard time attracting people," he said. 

"We have to improve internally and improve our morale and make people feel supported in their work and feel happier in their work so when people come to visit looking for a job, they don't get turned off ... that's a few years in the making."

We don't have the greatest reputation out there, and so we may have a hard time attracting people.— Dr. Michael Gardam

Gardam said it is important students coming to the new school have a positive experience, because he wants them to stay on P.E.I. to work.

"We have quite a ways to go before I would feel very confident saying when we're bringing in medical students and residents that they're going to be blown away by our health-care system. Right now I don't think that I could say that."

Opposition leader told of delay, says UPEI

Interim UPEI president Dr. Greg Keefe said the decision to delay the start date for the school came in late January after discussions with the national body that accredits new medical schools — something that hasn't happened in Canada for 20 years, he said. 

"None of us has built a medical school before, so you have to realize that," Keefe said. He added stakeholders were notified before anyone else, but before an announcement could be made the update had to make its way through the university's senate. 

"We've had discussions with government, with the Medical Society, with Health P.E.I., we did meet with the leader of the Opposition as well and he was aware of the timeline the accreditation body was telling us was reasonable," Keefe said, adding that happened before the legislature began sitting last week.  

Green Leader Peter Bevan-Baker confirmed he was part of a conversation about the delay, but that it was held in confidence and he didn't tell the rest of the Green MLAs.

There are more than a dozen committees working on the project. 

Keefe said news of the site on campus for the new school will be released shortly in a message, and the building will then be started "as soon as possible." A two-year window to build the school will also be challenging given the current construction boom, he said.

Premier Dennis King attended the announcement of the medical school in October, saying it would lay a foundation for a better health-care system on P.E.I.

The UPEI program would emphasize generalists and family physicians.

Currently more than 22,000 Islanders do not have a family doctor.