The COVID-19 pandemic has called upon health care providers across the continuum of care to make significant adjustments to models of care, embrace innovation and leverage the learnings of others from within our region and beyond. With June being stroke month, the Stroke Network of Southeastern Ontario wanted to take this opportunity to recognize all the providers who care for stroke survivors and their loved ones with skill, compassion and interprofessional collaboration. While resources have been stretched to their limits (and beyond), those involved in stroke care across the continuum have generously shared tools, resources and strategies with their regional colleagues to support the provision of best practice stroke care. Staff have been redeployed, hospital units have been restructured, family visits have been restricted or eliminated, home visits have required complex approaches and yet you have all continued to ensure that those persons who have experienced a stroke and their families have received individualized, client-centred care. And, you have accomplished all this while also being called upon to care for yourselves and your families. Christopher Reeve once said that a hero is “an ordinary individual who finds the strength to persevere and endure in spite of overwhelming obstacles.” Working from that definition, the Stroke Network expresses our deepest thanks to all of the heroes here in the southeast that provide exceptional stroke care across the continuum.
Fewer strokes. Better outcomes.