Mayors reach consensus on medical school.

• Author: GOULIQUER, DIANNE
• Position: Brief Article

Mayor disgruntled by province's decision, but willing to support initiative

A single "made-in-the-North" medical school is unacceptable and will not address doctor shortages in northwestern Ontario, Thunder Bay Mayor Ken Boshcoff says.

In response to the province's decision to base a Northern Ontario medical school out of Sudbury's Laurentian University with Lakehead University in Thunder Bay hosting a satellite clinical component, Boshcoff says Thunder Bay and the rest of northwestern Ontario have nothing to gain if the training facility is located in Sudbury.

* Boshcoff attended a May 23 meeting in Thunder Bay that brought about 50 municipal, medical and business representatives from northeastern and northwestern Ontario together to discuss the issue.

He says while he is pleased the government has acknowledged the need for a medical school in Northern Ontario, he hopes it will change its mind on the one-site option.

"The meeting ended with the conclusion that we (Northern Ontario communities) will congratulate the government on its concept for a made-in-the-North medical school, and that we would all work together to develop a business plan based on the original model that would have two degree-granting medical campuses, one at Lakehead and one at Laurentian," Boshcoff says. "That kind of takes the pressure off Sudbury having to defend what they got, and it shows the North is still united for the understanding that the solution of...