Eleven trauma specialists from Royal University Hospital have returned home after their training mission in Stony Rapids.

The team made the 1,000 kilometre trek as part of the Resource-Variable Trauma Team Development Course, which is designed to provide assistance to remote or under-resourced areas.

One of the 11, Dr. Niroshan Sothilingam, says the program is just as beneficial for the trainers as it is for the trainees.

“For our team, it’s super educational to learn where these places are, what their resources are, what transport (they have), transport is incredibly challenging this far north, and just really learning how they do such an amazing job with the limited resources they have.”

He says about 15 health care workers and first responders were provided with trauma training, such as resuscitation techniques, made easier with a high-tech training manikin, which can talk, bleed, cry, and sweat.

“It gives you that realistic feeling of working on somebody. We have somebody running the manikin who can change things in real time on how well they’re doing with the resuscitation. It’s a lot of fun.”

The program is donor-funded, and the recent Stony Rapids trip was made possible through a $300,000 gift from Orano.

“(The recipients) have been very encouraging and thankful that we’re here to run these courses. I don’t know that there’s many courses that come up here.”

This is the 13th trek the team has made since the outreach program’s inception in 2023.

“We went to Humboldt, Kindersley, La Ronge, Estevan. Swift Current, Melfort, Lloyd. A lot of it is they reach out to us saying, ‘Please come our community, we’d love to have you.’ We try to run about four courses a year.”

He adds that the team is already in discussions regarding upcoming destinations.