SUNDRE – A local organization dedicated to fostering local educational opportunities in a variety of health-care fields remains unwavering in its commitment to provide support for students pursuing a career in rural medicine.
“One of the long-term goals of the Sundre Hospital Futures (Committee) is for our town to become a campus of care where we’re teaching, where we’re providing health care, but also an opportunity for rural folks to learn what they can in health care,” Gerald Ingeveld, the committee’s chair, told the Albertan during a phone interview.
“We’re the first group like ours in Alberta to do what we call the high school skills day. We brought high school students into the hospital, ran them through a number of stations and really gave them a hands-on idea of what a career in rural health care could be.”
The inaugural skills day introducing high school students to what a day of working in a rural hospital setting resembles was held in 2017 with sponsorship support from the Alberta Rural Physician Action Plan as well as Alberta Health Services.
Although the COVID-19 pandemic has over the past few years derailed those efforts, the group once again has its sights set on delivering similar program opportunities for students from Sundre and the surrounding area, said Ingeveld.
“That’s our desire,” he said, optimistic about the possibility of putting something on this spring. “We haven’t got anything in place yet, but it’s something that we’ll certainly look at.”
The committee has in the past delivered a health-care aide course, which it eventually plans to do once again, and is also considering options to provide a licensed practical nurse course in Sundre. However, the latter hinges on securing enough registrations to proceed, and the committee is endeavouring to gauge interest from prospective students, he said.
“It all fits into that campus of care idea,” he said.
Above and beyond introducing rural-raised students who are prospecting a path in a health-care field to help them determine whether they’re on the right track, the committee also offers two bursaries to successful applicants.
“We believe that the best kids to be going into a rural-based health-care field, are kids that are raised rural,” he said. “They have far (fewer) opportunities to go into those fields because most of the training is in the cities, and when a country kid has to go into the city for training, it’s pretty expensive.”
So the committee’s objective is two-fold: encourage young people to consider a career in rural health care as well as to provide bursaries to alleviate the financial burden of post-secondary education, he said.
One of the bursaries is called the Joanne Overguard Memorial Scholarship, which was named in honour of a late, local nurse of 32 years who worked at the Sundre hospital. That fund, which is intended specifically for students aspiring to become a registered nurse, is sponsored by her family, he said.
“We have been giving $1,000 per year to one student,” he said. “This year, because we missed out during COVID, we did two scholarships to two nursing students.”
Sara Lightbown and Jaime Bodell were this year’s recipients of that bursary, which was presented in November during the return of the Sundre Hospital Legacy Gala fundraiser.
The Health Careers Scholarship, also representing a $1,000 bursary, is for students interested in pursuing other kinds of health-care fields – from health-care aides to paramedics – that are destined to involve working in a rural setting, he said, adding there were also two recipients of that award – Annalise Fricker and Amber Overguard-Peters.
