Due to an anonymous donation of $1 million dollars to the Hospitals of Regina Foundation, stroke care for southern Saskatchewan will be improved at the Wascana Rehabilitation Centre. "This will impact positively on stroke victims in our region," said Dr. Vino Padayachee, Medical Chief of Staff for Sun Country Health Region.

"More space at Wascana will mean that more patients can be seen," said Padayachee.

The announcement was made by Judy Davis, CEO of the Hospitals of Regina Foundation at the Wascana Rehabilitation Centre on August 28, via a TeleHealth conference to all five health regions in Southern Saskatchewan.

"A private donor, committed to stroke care in southern Saskatchewan, has promised to give a matching grant of $1 million, provided that the Hospitals of Regina Foundation helps the community to raise $500,000 by December 1," said Davis. "To date, $196,000 has been raised."

The funds raised will provide more space development in the Wascana Rehabilitation Centre's inpatient rehab unit centre in Regina, including updating facilities in order to be in line with current rehab concepts.

The funds will also be used to purchase new equipment and new communication technologies for TeleHealth. TeleHealth is an electronic health system that has been used by these five health regions in the last year to better communication between doctors from rural Saskatchewan to urban Saskatchewan.

Sun Country Health Region has been using TeleHealth to communicate with the other health regions in Southern Saskatchewan for one year now, with the necessary technology available at Weyburn General Hospital, St. Joseph Hospital in Estevan and Kipling Health Centre.

"With using the TeleHealth technology, doctors are able to discuss cases with specialists with it almost being like that specialist is in the same room," said Padayachee. "One of the aims is to provide TeleHealth in all health care facilities in Southern Saskatchewan, so that it can be beneficial to a practitioner in a rural centre who requires a second opinion."

Ongoing recovery treatment is critical to establishing a Network of Excellence. Modern digital technologies will allow specialists in Regina to offer remote monitoring and assessment to rural outpatients without requiring those stroke survivors to travel long distances for care.

This vision has the support of the Canadian Stroke Network, the Canadian Stroke Strategy and the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Saskatchewan.