RHA to open 30 aboriginal nursing seats – Portage Daily Graphic

June 23, 2015

The regional health authority recently announced that it will open 30 seats for aboriginal students interested in pursuing the field of nursing.

The 29-month Aboriginal LPN Training Program is in partnership with the RHA, seven first nations communities in Manitoba, the Manitoba Metis Federation, Assiniboine Community College, and the federal and provincial governments.

“Because there’s a high usage of health care services in the aboriginal communities we thought this would be an excellent training opportunity for the community members to get some training and education as well as meaningful employment within Southern Health,” said Rene Ouelette, vice-president of human resources for Southern Health-Sante Sud.

Ouelette acknowledged that since there are still a number of nursing vacancies in the health region this training should help with staff shortages in area hospitals. He said currently aboriginal nurses make up about six per cent of all nursing staff in the region. Six years ago there were only 56 aboriginal employees that self-identified in the region amongst a staff of 5,600, whereas today there are more than 220 aboriginal employees that have self-identified.

Read More: http://www.portagedailygraphic.com/2015/06/23/rha-to-open-30-aboriginal-nursing-seats