Hotel provides med school bursary money

The Clarion Resort Pinewood Park will be helping students attend the Northern Ontario Medical School. Further info is included in the following news release issued today by Clarion general manager Tom Mason:

After listening to presentations and requests for funding for the bursary fund at North Bay City council on Monday the Clarion Resort is proud to take a leadership roll and commit to donating $5,000 towards funding the bursary program. The Northern Ontario Medical school, were looking for a commitment of $10,200 per year for five years or $1 per person based on our population of a conservative 52,000, from the city of North Bay.

With the announcement today from the provincial government that they will match the donations made on a 50-50 basis, this means that the Clarion donation will actually create with the leverage $10,000 worth of funding to make a young-persons dream of becoming a doctor a reality.

The program will ensure that funding is given to northern students who will attend the new school, the focus is to bring new doctors to Northern communities which is badly needed.

After discussion with the staff committee and department heads the Clarion Team, Agreed to gear their staff fundraising towards this initiative. The staff will raise $500 a year and the hotel will match the staff donation resulting in $1,000 a year for five years.

Tom Mason, General Manager of the Clarion stated: “This is a crucial initiative for North Bay and Northern Ontario. We all at sometime will need a doctor. North Bay needs to be part off and must support this worthy cause. Who knows if we can raise the $10, 000 a year that was requested from city council over five years, we could see 3-5 new intern doctors working at our hospital in three years. The Clarion Managers and staff are proud to be part of this and to be able to do something to help with the recruitment and training of new doctors. It is important that North Bay takes the lead and that we compete for our share of these newly trained doctors”

Mr.Ted Hargreaves, Chair of the local bursary committee fund. Said that. “He was thrilled, to see a local business take the lead in support of his quest to bring more doctors to North Bay, and that he feels that it is key that North Bay takes a leading roll not only to train but to retain these doctors in our city”. He hopes that this will be followed by a commitment from the city to meet the requested target of $54,000 over five years.

The program will offer the opportunity for aboriginal and francophone candidates as well and he also said “this is a perfect opportunity for our young people to become doctors and is a real made for the north in the north solution to the doctor shortage”