The Ontario government is investing just over $1-million to expand the number of spaces in the nursing program at the University of Windsor.
It was announced Thursday that $1,000,400 will be invested to expand enrolment in nursing programs at the university, training up to 25 additional nurses by 2029.
This funding is part of a $56.8-million investment to expand enrolment in nursing programs across the province, adding 2,200 nursing professionals to Ontario's health care workforce by 2029.
This funding will help to meet the need for more nurses in Ontario hospitals, long-term care homes, community health centres, and primary care clinics.
Windsor-Tecumseh Conservative MPP Andrew Dowie says this funding will create more nursing spaces over the next few years.
"This builds on some past announcements, both St. Clair and the University of Windsor had received spaces in the last couple of months, so reflective of demand we are adding to that count. So Windsor is going to continue to be a premier place to get a nursing education."
He says the province has to meet the demand.
"We want to improve the number of spaces, the access to nursing education, and more broadly education in healthcare because we are finding that we don't have enough people coming in to address the demand that we have. We have the Province of Ontario seeing a million more people every year coming to the province - we need to grow our workforce, and find that skill set."
Dowie says another benefit is many students remain in the city where they study.
"They meet their significant other, they fall in love with the cost of housing which is better here than other places, or just the community in general, and so having those education spaces just makes a world of difference in attracting healthcare talent to our community."
In June, Ontario committed $750,000 to RN prescribing education, a program which allows RNs to prescribe medication.
The money was provided to the University of Windsor, Georgian College and Humber Polytechnic.