Mixed political reaction to delay for UPEI medical school

News of another delay for a medical school at the University of Prince Edward Island is getting mixed political reaction. 

University officials now say the first students won't be starting classes until August 2025. When it was first announced in October 2021, the school was supposed to open in the fall of this year.

It was then pushed to 2024.

On Thursday, the university said plans must be delayed because they can't guarantee accreditation officials that the new medical faculty building will be built and ready for use in time for the 2024-25 academic year. 

NDP candidate and the party's former leader, Dr.Herb Dickieson, said on Friday that the university has done a tremendous amount of work on the plan for a school that offers a joint Doctor of Medicine degree with Memorial University, based in Newfoundland and Labrador. 

But Dickieson said the province needs to do more to make sure there are enough doctors on P.E.I. to help make a medical school possible. 

"The King government has utterly failed when it comes to physician recruitment on the Island, and we've lost a lot of doctors over the last few years and they're just not being replaced quickly enough," he said. "So there's a retention problem and there's a recruitment problem, which the King government has failed to address."

Green Party Leader Peter Bevan-Baker said he thought the original timelines were very optimistic when the school was announced in 2021. 

He thinks delaying the intake of medical students was the responsible thing to do.

Bevan-Baker says more work is needed in order to ensure the health system can withstand the added demands of the new school.

'It's really indicative of something which has not been thoroughly thought through before it was announced," he said. "And that's a real problem. We know how much the medical system is struggling here on Prince Edward Island at the moment. Doctors are overwhelmed.

"I love the idea of a medical school. I don't think there's anybody on the Island who would not like to have that. But if it's going to be a further demand and strain and drain on the existing medical system ... then I think we have to be really careful about what we're doing here and make sure that we're ready for it," Bevan-Baker said. 

Liberal Leader Sharon Cameron said she has no faith in government to deliver on the medical school. She thinks it will be a decade before it will be any help for the health care system. 

"It's the only plan they have ... I'm not optimistic [but] I think it would be great if they succeed," she said. 

The university has said that with the new timeline, students will not require residency placements until 2029.