When a child is diagnosed with cancer, everything changes. The diagnosis impacts their entire family. It is a terrifying moment, made worse when parents are told they must travel hours away to receive the care their child needs.

Thanks in part to Canada Life’s latest gift to Hospitals of Regina Foundation, southern Saskatchewan families will have access to specialized treatment for their child, close to home. The long-time Foundation partner committed $75,000 to support the creation of a pharmacy clean room for our Children’s Cancer Clinic at the Regina General Hospital.

“Canada Life has been our partner since 1989, and their continued generosity is helping us change the future of pediatric cancer care in our community,” Hospitals of Regina Foundation president and CEO Dino Sophocleous says. “This pharmacy clean room will help our children receive personalized cancer treatments close to their family.”

The new pharmacy clean room will allow pharmacists to create personalized chemotherapy treatments based on each child’s bloodwork and their unique cancer markers, providing a level of precision that was not possible before. Customizing treatment in this way lessens harmful side effects, reduces damage to healthy cells and gives our kids the greatest chance at the best results possible.

Sterile, isolated and built with specialized filtration systems, the clean room will make it possible to safely prepare highly effective chemotherapy drugs on-site. It will also keep the chemotherapy treatment sterile, reducing the risk of infection for our young patients, whose immune systems are already weakened by cancer treatment.

More than 135 children currently receive treatment and follow-up care at our Children’s Cancer Clinic, including 22 newly diagnosed in the past year. The pharmacy clean room will help our medical teams provide kids with cancer the best possible care, right here at home.

“At Canada Life, we believe that our kids deserve the very best care,” says Canada Life Spokesperson. “We’re proud to support a project that helps families stay together, while giving kids in southern Saskatchewan the best chance at recovering from cancer.”

Thanks to the generosity of Canada Life and other donors, Hospitals of Regina Foundation is ensuring every child facing cancer in southern Saskatchewan can receive the best care possible, right here at home while surrounded by the people who love them most.