The BC NDP is promising to launch the province’s second medical school at SFU Surrey, if the party is elected.
Adrian Dix, Vancouver-Kingsway candidate, made the announcement Tuesday (Oct. 13) in Surrey.
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BC NDP Leader John Horgan initially announced the second medical school the week before, but didn’t say where it would be based.
Dix, who was B.C.’s minister of health for the last three years, said this school would be a partnership with the Fraser Health Authority and the First Nations Health Authority.
He added it will “focus on the needs of our health-care system in the future, in particular, a focus on primary care and on population health.”
While it would be based at SFU Surrey in Whalley, Dix said the medical school would be “everywhere in B.C., or Fraser Health, I should say in particular.”
“Just as the UBC medical school is all over British Columbia, so you’ll see centres of this new medical school in hospitals throughout Faser Health and working with the First Nations Health Authority and with local divisions of family practice.”
Dix said it would be “complementary” to UBC’s medical school, but it “won’t be as big as the UBC medical school; it doesn’t need to be.”
“It will fulfill an important need for our health-care system and will be an exciting new model for a medical school in Surrey.”
The first graduating class could be 2023-24, Dix said.
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READ ALSO: Wilkinson says Surrey’s second hospital is one of BC Liberals’ highest priorities’, Oct. 8, 2020
Voters go to the polls Oct. 24.
For more election coverage, click here.
lauren.collins@surreynowleader.com
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