Video Source: CTV Winnipeg
Over the weekend of Aug 4-6th 2022, the Smilezone team transformed NINE NEW SMILEZONES within the Brandon Regional Health Centre’s Pediatric Unit – the first ever Smilezones in the province of Manitoba!
A very big thank you to our generous donors – the Grewal, Kuntz and Spencer families – for supporting the first ever Smilezones in Brandon, Manitoba. The Smilezones are dedicated in loving memory to Satwant Kaur Grewal and Dieter Kuntz, who dedicated their lives to health care. All three families are directly linked to the Brandon Regional Health Center which dates back to when it was still known as Brandon General Hospital. “Our father was a psychiatrist at Brandon Mental Health Center and sadly died of cancer shortly after he arrived in Brandon,” said Jin Grewal, who spoke on behalf of the donor families at the unveiling. “Our mother worked as a nurse at Brandon General Hospital. And I know she would have been very proud of how the care community has worked tirelessly to get us through what has been an incredibly challenging past two and a half years.”
The new Smilezone features brightly-coloured Brandon-themed murals in the halls and rooms, a games room, child-sized furniture, TV, and other sensory-development features designed to keep young patients and their families upbeat and smiling while they are receiving treatments and other care at the hospital.
Pediatric patient, Amari Stocks, said she had to be at the ward for her own treatments and said the new look is a marked improvement to the previous institutional look of the ward. “It is absolutely adorable up there,” she said. “It’s so much fun up there and it totally brought a smile to my face. This ward is such an amazing place, full of the most amazing, kind people you will ever know. So having this branch for the ward is such an amazing thing. It’s going to make so may people happy.”
Brandon Regional Health Centre offers a wide range of health services and programs to the citizens of Brandon and the municipalities of Cornwallis, Elton and Whitehead, previously known as the Brandon Regional Health Authority, now serves the Assiniboine and Parkland RHA’s as well; and serves as a regional referral centre for the Westman area. The Brandon Regional Health Centre provides more services and referrals to the region than any other hospital in Manitoba with the exception of Manitoba’s teaching hospital, the Health Sciences Centre.
