A large donation to Windsor Regional Hospital.
The W.E. Care for Kids Foundation has donated just shy of $128,000 ($127,935) to the hospital to support critical upgrades and purchases for pediatric healthcare.
This donation will assist the hospital in a number of different ways by providing medical equipment to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) and the Family Birthing Centre.
The donation will also help to purchase specialized pediatric anesthesia equipment to ensure the hospital can deliver high-quality care to the youngest and most vulnerable patients.
Viki Grado, Executive Director of the W.E. Care for Kids Foundation, says this funding will help cover a range of services for children and their parents.
"Bottle warmers, to reclining chairs for moms and dads. The biggest and I think most impactful purchase is there's two GlideScope systems for the pediatric operating room, and that's going to really help them process more children, and get kids in and out safer."
She says this will help to keep care local.
"You just hear so many stories about families having to leave Windsor, and leave one child here, and then one parent go to London, and to know that we're doing our part, if we even just help one family and make life easier for some of these families, it's just a really good feeling to know that some of this equipment will be able keep kids here in Windsor."
Grado says this money is all from the foundation's 2024 fundraising.
"Basically what we do is we have the hospital give us a wish list, and we have our disbursement committee go through that wish list and see what items are most impactful, and most needed at the hospital. And then all of the money from 2024 is used to purchase those items."
To date, W.E. Care for Kids has raised over $10-million to improve healthcare services for children across Windsor-Essex.
W.E. Care for Kids Foundation helps a number of organizations in Windsor-Essex such as Windsor Regional Hospital, Erie Shores HealthCare, John McGivney Children's Centre, among others.