75-year-old Dawn is very active and lives near Taree in the Manning Valley.
Dawn was at her regular art class when friends noticed that her words were jumbled when she spoke. They suspected she was having a stroke and immediately drove her to Manning Base Hospital in Taree.
At the hospital, Dawn was triaged and assessed for the NSW Telestroke Service by the local staff. Professor Ken Butcher, located at Prince of Wales Hospital in Sydney, virtually assessed Dawn and prescribed her clot-busting medicine to treat the stroke.
By that evening, Dawn’s speech had returned to normal, and she was feeling much better.
Dawn is extremely thankful for the NSW Telestroke Service and all the care she received.
“Within minutes of arriving at the hospital, I was with the local stroke team who were fantastic, and I was able to see and talk to the Telestroke Neurologist based in Sydney, which was very reassuring,” said Dawn.
Dawn is now back living an active life – walking, swimming, playing croquet, and spending time with family and friends.
"If I hadn’t received this care my life would be very different right now,” said Dawn. “Telestroke provides marvellous support for people in regional locations."
Stroke is a time-critical medical emergency. A stroke kills up to 1.9 million brain cells per minute, and time saved accessing stroke treatment results in brainpower saved.
The NSW Telestroke Service provides around-the-clock access to life-saving stroke diagnosis and treatment, connecting local doctors to specialist stroke physicians via video consultation.
Up to 23 hospitals across regional and rural NSW will be connected to the service by June 2022. Implementation of the NSW Telestroke Service is a collaboration between Prince of Wales Hospital, eHealth NSW, the Agency for Clinical Innovation, and the Ministry of Health. The NSW Telestroke Service is a $21.7 million NSW Government election commitment announced in March 2019. It is jointly funded by the NSW and Commonwealth Governments.
More information
If you are a clinician and want to find out more about the NSW Telestroke Service, visit the Agency for Clinical Innovation.