SAN ANTONIO – Palo Alto College is celebrating after getting the green light to offer the first associate degree in nursing on the South Side of San Antonio.
“This has been a long time coming. We’ve been talking about a nursing program on the South Side of San Antonio at Palo Alto for as long as I can remember, and that’s been over 20 years,” said Robert Garza, president of Palo Alto College.
Garza said college leaders traveled to Austin and the Board of Nursing approved the program.
“Palo Alto College in the South Side is considered, what they consider a health care desert. Which means that there’s really not access or affordable access to healthcare in the south Side. Now, we’re really excited with our partnership with the University Health, with the Palo Alto Hospital that’s going to be here on the South Side, but that’s still a few years to come. And so we’re going to start prepping our community right now to get nurses into the hospitals, into the clinics and ready to serve our South Side community,” Garza said.
Students in the program will take courses at the South Side Education and Training Center that opened last year.
KSAT went behind the scenes of the facility. Students will acquire nursing skills through instruction in different labs.
“Palo Alto College and the Alamo Colleges are really working to be part of the solution, to provide affordable healthcare for our community members,” Garza said.
Garza said the program will start as early as the fall of this year and they will begin taking applications in the spring.
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