EDMONTON -- "I wanted to just be part of the solution," Kathleen Cesarin says.
The specialized LPN was inspired to change the way the health system treats chronic wounds after working in emergency rooms for a decade.
"I got tired of seeing people's toes and limbs being amputated knowing 85 per cent of them were preventable," Cesarin told CTV News Edmonton.
Cesarin opened Accelerated Cast Clinic and Limb Preservation in August 2019, bringing together a team of specialists and therapists to serve clients' needs and reducing the need for amputations.
Dale Hasenuik is one of those patients. He lives with Type 2 diabetes and was told he needed to have his foot amputated after a deep sore became infected.
After only four months of treatments at Accelerated, his ulcer closed.
"I'm grateful," Hasenuik said. "They've basically saved my foot. It would have been gone, there was no doubt."
According to Wounds Canada, there are 400 lower limb amputations in Alberta each year, costing the health care system up to $86 million.
About 320,000 Albertans have diabetes and as many as 25 per cent of them will develop a foot ulcer in their lifetime.
The services at the clinic are covered by most private insurance plans. Cesarin hopes to work with the government to have everything covered by Alberta Health.
