The proposed medical school at Simon Fraser University in Surrey is getting another cash injection from the B.C. government to speed up the development of the program.
Premier David Eby made the $33.7 million announcement Tuesday, flanked by Lisa Beare, minister of Post-Secondary Education and Future Skills, Health Minister Adrian Dix, and SFU’s president and vice-chancellor, Joy Johnson.
Eby explained that the province is facing a “challenge” that is not unique to B.C., in needing more health-care professionals to deliver care to a growing population.
“We’re in a contest for those health-care professionals. We’re recruiting from places like the United Kingdom, internationally trained doctors and nurses. And it’s not enough for the long-term plan for our community. We need to make sure that we’re training up those health-care professionals to deliver care for British Columbians right here,” he said.
“Thanks to our partnership with SFU we said a resounding ‘yes’ to a new medical school — the first new medical school in Western Canada in a generation, in 55 years, right here in Surrey.”
The new funding is an addition to the previously announced investment in the provincial Budget 2024 which was released in February, totalling about $75 million. July’s investment will help to fund a space, operations, a founding three-year curriculum model, and the founding dean, Eby explained.
In a statement, the province explained the school’s “interim site is at the existing building space at SFU’s Surrey campus, as well as a leased space nearby. SFU will design, renovate and equip the spaces to accommodate classrooms, labs, and faculty and staff office space.”
“I’m thrilled to celebrate this milestone for the School of Medicine and look forward to all it will accomplish for SFU, Surrey, and our province,” said Johnson. “Everyone deserves health care that is effective, accessible, inclusive, and culturally safe. We are working hard to build a school of medicine that will educate the next generation of physicians and make a difference for British Columbians in communities across the province.”
The medical school was a platform promise by the BC NDP in 2020. The party had initially suggested that new graduates would be coming out of the school as early as 2024, however, that date was revised in 2022, with the first cohort of students now expected to begin in 2026.