Winnipeg’s Children’s Hospital is getting a new unit specializing in treating children with Epilepsy.
The new paediatric epilepsy and paediatric neurosurgery program is being made possible by a $2 million donation by Michael Schlater and his wife Lilibeth. Schlater is CEO of Domino’s Pizza of Canada.
Schlater suffered his first seizure at 47 and eventually needed brain surgery. His now 26-year-old daughter had her first seizure when she was five.
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He said he’s happy to help add something that’s been missing in Manitoba.
“I was stunned when I found out they didn’t have it,” he said. “To me this is something that makes a huge difference.”
An estimated 9,000 people in Winnipeg live with Epilepsy. It’s a chronic neurological condition characterized by recurrent seizures. Nearly 85 per cent of diagnoses are made in childhood but, until now, Manitoba didn’t have a special unit to treat children struggling with it.
“Currently wait lists to refer these patients out of province are up to two years in some cases,” said Dr. Demitre Serlitis, a neurosurgeon at Children’s Hospital who has been behind plans for the new unit. “The province has spent up to $1.5 million in the last six to seven years, sending these patients out.”
The new unit is expected to put Manitoba on the cutting edge of epilepsy treatment. It will feature two new beds and the hospital is hiring two paediatric Epilepsy neurologists. They will start in the fall. The plan is to start seeing patients in 2018.
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