March 2, 2023 – Governments of Canada and PEI: Dominic LeBlanc, Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs, Infrastructure and Communities, Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance, and Dennis King, Premier of PEI were joined by other dignitaries to announce more than $48.8 million in joint funding for the new health education building that will house the new Faculty of Medicine on the University of Prince Edward Island campus.

The funding is key to the creation of the UPEI Faculty of Medicine. It will allow UPEI, in partnership with Memorial University of Newfoundland, to offer a joint Doctor of Medicine degree. The program will start in September 2025 under Memorial’s accreditation and will later become a fully joint program.

The new five-storey, nearly 133,000-square-foot energy-efficient facility will provide spaces where simulations, clinical learning and academic anatomy learning will be able to take place for medical students and students in other interprofessional health education programs such as nursing, nurse practitioner, and paramedicine.

It will also house the expanded UPEI Health and Wellness Centre, which will transition to a patient medical home and on-site psychology clinic that will add much needed capacity to PEI’s healthcare system. The facility will be a model for primary care delivery, improve community access to healthcare and provide service to more than 10,000 patients each year. This increased access will help reduce the waitlist for family doctors and relieve pressure on Island walk-in clinics, emergency rooms, outpatient departments, and physicians.

Read the full news release here