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Health regionsyheal thyselvesRe: June 1 7 article about shortage of nurses and doctors in PMH region.If Prairie Mountain Health needs nurses and doctors so badlv, then it and other health regions had better start beingBrandon Student Aid office informing her sad point when the only solution for a she would get no financial aid to finish her young person to get retrained in a field LPN course because she had (according where the province needs people is forpensioners like us to have to beggar ourselves and jeopardize our health to pavto him) “substantially under-reported her income.” On the Manitoba Student Aidproactive and pressure Manitoba Student application, the applicant is asked to for our daughter’s final year of LPNAid for funding for Canadians wishing to estimate their earnings for the summer of pursue training in these fields. It’s past time 2013. In the fast food industry, it’s veryfor Penny Gilson and her counterparts difficult knowing how many hours you’llelsewhere in the province to start actively get so my daughter estimated — and, nolobbying the Manitoba government to surprise, got it wrong. Alain C. has full unacceptable. It seems that the Manitobaaccess to her federal income tax and hertraining.Treating hard-working students with the disrespect that my daughter has faced from the Manitoba Student Aid department isfund training in medical jobs where there are desperate shortages. It’s time to stop bringing in foreign health workers and start training our own citizens to till thesepositions.However, while many of our youngpeople would be thrilled to retrain, the reality is that when you’re working at just above minimum wage, it’s almost financially impossible to retrain without a student loan. Unfortunately, Manitoba Student Aid penalizes people who work.Why do I say this? Well, my daughter just finished her first year of an LPN program at ACC. In the fall of 201.3, shewas told she’d get a $12,000 student loan to finance her two years of training. In February 2014, MSA reassessed her and demanded $3,000 back, leaving my daughter with her tuition paid until June 2014 but not enough money to cover rent and food. So having no other choice, she worked weekends to cover those expenses. She went in regularly to the Brandon student loans office with her pay stubs so they would be aware of how much she was earning.Then this past May, she was reassessed for a second time; in mid-June, she received a nasty letter from Alain C. at thepay stubs from February 2014 to the present, and yet in his recent letter he basically threatens her with heaven knows what consequences for supposedly lying on her application.The letter goes on to say that if her earnings are low enough in the next year, she might be considered for a loan for the 2015-16 student year. If that isn’t purestupidity, I don’t know what is because her LPN course ends in the spring of 2015. Alain C, as a representative of the entire student loan system, is basically ncouraging my daughter and others to quit school or work, go on social assistance or El, thus making them eligible for Student Aid! Manitoba Student Aid is penalizing some students like my daughterfor having worked before deciding to retrain i.e. for having had enough initiative to go out and work at just above minimum wage rather than collect El/SocialAssistance.My husband and I are on pension. 1 have significant (and expensive) healthproblems. Our daughter is almost 27 years care jobs old and has been on her own gainfullygovernment would rather pay young people unemployment or social assistance than help them via the Manitoba Student Aid program to retrain to fill desperately needed positions in Manitoba’s beleaguered health system. What kind of perverse, twisted logic is Manitoba’s Student Aid using when it penalizes people who have worked and hands out student loans to people who sat on their butts doing nothing?The bottom line? The only entities capable of applying enough pressure to change the Manitoba Student Aid program are the health regions. I’m tired of seeing the same old headlines about health staff shortages when the health regions don’t appear to have lobbied the provincial government to revamp their antiquated student aid system rules to reflect the financial realities our young people face in the 21st century.Lots of time and money is being thrown at importing foreign doctors, nurses andLFNs. Why not take some of that moneyand train our own citizens for these health-1employed for more than nine years. The province of Manitoba has come to a reallyVIRGINIA SHEMEL1UKSandy Lake
Newspaper Details
Brandon Sun Community News
Brandon, Manitoba, CA
Thu, Jul 10, 2014
Page 9
Full Page
Clipped by
Anonymous
DC, CA 11 Apr 2022
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