Taking an inside look…

Wetaskiwin donors support testing for faster swallowing

Story & photos by Gayleen Froese

WETASKIWIN — Nutrition is a vital part of healing, but it can be difficult to provide when patients struggle to safely swallow food and drinks. It’s crucial to determine the best and safest way to deliver nutrition, and deeply meaningful when a patient is able to return to eating and drinking.

For all of these reasons, a local family has chosen to bring a powerful tool to the speech language pathology team at Wetaskiwin Hospital and Care Centre.

Thanks to a $35,000 donation from the Coyne family, Wetaskiwin has a new Fiberoptic Endoscopic Evaluation of Swallowing (FEES) machine that uses a thin, lighted camera to provide an internal video of the patient swallowing in real time.

“Before we received this machine, patients might wait weeks to have their swallowing evaluated in Red Deer,” says Ajay Mysore Narasimha, a speech pathologist at Wetaskiwin Hospital. “That’s a delay in being able to send them home from the hospital and, for some, a delay in being able to go back to taking food and water by mouth.

“Imagine how much even a sip of water means to these patients. Now, they can have an evaluation and potentially return home and return to enjoying food much more quickly.”

Clinton Coyne says his family is inspired by their connection to the community.

“This is our home. We’re getting older and we want a good hospital for ourselves … and for everyone. We’re hoping it gets better and better.”