Grant to CCBC to help train health workers

Posted: 6:38 pm Wed, April 7, 2010
By Capital News Service
ANDREW KATZ

More than 2,000 allied health students at the Community College of Baltimore County will benefit from nearly $5 million in federal funding announced Wednesday by an array of public and education officials, who said the money was designed to alleviate the state’s health care worker shortage.

Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., joined Lt. Gov. Anthony Brown and Baltimore County Executive James Smith at the Essex campus to publicize the $4.9 million grant for its School of Health Professions and congratulate the students, faculty and staff for their continued commitment to health education.

“We wanted to create jobs today and jobs tomorrow,” said Mikulski, in a newly renovated respiratory therapy care lab funded by a previous grant. “We fought so hard to put money in the federal checkbook so that you would have a better checkbook.”

The grant came to the college as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act signed into law by President Barack Obama in February 2009. It will provide enough support to train 2,031 students and workers over three years, with 1,012 receiving certificates or degrees by February 2013.

Sandra Kurtinitis, the college’s president, said the money would also enable the school to renovate and upgrade existing labs, classrooms and simulation technologies. “What can’t we do with $4.9 million?” she quipped.

The Health Care Growth and Emerging Industries award is the largest received by a higher education institution in Maryland and the second largest in the country.

The award will also enable the school to create new workspaces and hire additional faculty in an effort to increase graduates in high-demand programs. According to the college, it will specifically support the Certified Nursing Assistant, Nurse Support Technician, Licensed Practical Nurse, Associate Degree Nurse and Respiratory Therapist Programs.

Wednesday’s announcement represents the third such honor the college has received from the Labor Department. The first two were awarded as part of the Community-Based Job Training Grants program and have allowed the health professions school to move courses online, renovate existing facilities and add new programs in dental hygiene and psychosocial rehabilitation.

Mikulski, who noted she previously taught sociology at a community college in the city, said the latest award would also go toward faculty salaries and learning opportunities for student assistants. The money became available to the school on March 1.

“This is a bridge to somewhere,” she said. “I’m very proud of you. … Essex continues to be an award-winning school.”

Brown echoed her sentiments, saying, “The jobs that are going to be created as a result of this program, 1,000-plus, are going to be more and more in demand as more and more Americans and Marylanders have access to health care.”

Virginia Forster, director of clinical education for the respiratory care therapist program, said the new simulation equipment and increased work space has been “wonderful.”

“We’ve really benefited from the money,” said Forster, who said she has watched the program evolve from a one-year certificate option  in 1988 to a two-year, selective-admission program today.

“[The students are] able to see the equipment in the lab and work with it before they see it in the clinical area.”