THUNDER BAY – After 16 years as a personal support worker, Katie Tremblay finally began nursing school this spring.
“I became a single mom 15 years ago. I took PSW to get into the health field because I wanted to go into nursing, but I couldn't do it with the time restraints that I had."
Tremblay currently works at the Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre as a PSW, and said a colleague had brought the program up, and encouraged her to take it.
“It's been something I've always wanted to do, I just did it in a different order than I thought when I was young,” she said.
Tremblay started in the nursing program at Confederation College in March 2025. She is one of 50 students in the free and fast-tracked program.
“It was kind of like a push. I'm a single mom, so having a funded program helps when you (have) only a limited income. Then you don't have anything owing after, because paying off a student loan as a single parent is hard.
“There's lots of things that this program made me go, ‘oh this would help me in the future.'
The fact that the program is only 18 months is also beneficial, Tremblay said.
“When I first went into it, I thought it would be too fast. They do give you a lot of time to do it, it's not so packed that no one can do it.
“There's other single moms in the program, there's single students, we have everything from people in their 20s to almost 50,” she said.
Applications opened in January and the seats were quickly filled, said college officials.
Twenty per cent of the 50 students self-identified as Indigenous, according to Shane Strickland, Dean of school of health, Negahneewin and community services.
"We're also working directly with a number of communities around Northwestern Ontario so students will have direct access into long term care or other community placement agencies both in towns across Northwestern but also within Indigenous communities.
"It's an exciting opportunity for real experiential learning working with Indigenous populations," he said.
"Students are going to have their tuition and ancillary fees covered, as well as any supplies and textbooks that they will need. There's even funding involved for students that might need to travel for their placements, so this should be zero cost to the students to complete the program.
“This really allows the students to gain access to education they otherwise wouldn't be able to have," he said.
The classes are all recorded and work can be done from almost anywhere, Tremblay said.
There are people in the class that reside in Marathon, Geraldton, Fort Frances, Dryden, and Wawa.
“They can access our teachers — it's not just Thunder Bay.”
Tremblay said it is her first time online learning, and the transition was really smooth and easy.
“If you have a smartphone, you can do it. The teachers are right there on the screen. You’re watching videos like people do with social media,” she said.
The program is getting $1.5 million from the province, which was officially announced on June 23. The funding shows the government is working towards not just adequate but superior healthcare in Northwestern Ontario, Strickland said.
“Adding the 50 additional students into our programming here in the next two years really ensures that our communities are going to have the health human resources that they need to be able to respond to patient needs across the North.”
Michelle Salo, president of Confederation College, said these 50 seats are critical for Thunder Bay and Northwestern Ontario.
“We've heard many, many times from all our healthcare providers how short we are for nurses in the region, and as we heard earlier that often students who train in region will stay in the region.
MPP for Thunder Bay – Atikokan, Kevin Holland, said the shortage of nurses is a real problem.
“The fast tracking of the program means that the nurses are going to be able to get out and start practicing quicker.”
Nurses training in the communities that they're from know the circumstances of those communities, and therefore they can provide a much better quality of service to the patients, he said.
