The Health Foundation is $10,000 closer to procuring new cardiac stress test lab equipment and a hematology analyzer following a donation from the Royal Canadian Legion's 2012 Poppy Campaign.
On September 4, Peter Wyatt, president of the legion, and George Arnold, Sergeant at Arms, presented a cheque to Ross Fisher, Health Foundation executive director.
"This type of lab equipment is very important to our Legion members and to many people in the community," Wyatt said.
The Poppy Campaign is very familiar to Canadians, more than half of whom don the ubiquitous red flowers every November in remembrance of the nation's fallen soldiers.
What is perhaps less familiar, Arnold pointed out, is that while Legion volunteers collect the poppy money, none of the funds go toward the Legion branches themselves. They are distributed to charitable causes that benefit veterans and, by extension, the entire community.
Fisher noted that cardiovascular disease is highly prevalent in the Sunrise Health Region accounting for more than a third of all deaths.
"This means that in addition to the benefit it will have to patients from the Stroke Clinic, it will also provide an additional range of tests to thousands of other patients with a variety of other medical conditions," Fisher said.
In addition to the Health Foundation donation, Wyatt and Arnold presented cheques of $1,000 each to Sherri Walker, SHR director of home care, and Suzanne Beck, director of therapeutic recreation and day wellness at the Yorkton and District Nursing Home. The funds will enhance programs and activities such as home care's Meals on Wheels and the nursing home's annual exhibition that benefit veterans.
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