Elba Haid, President & CEO of Real Care Inc., a Manitoba homecare services provider, has committed to helping Heart and Stroke raise $1 million in Manitoba to save women’s lives. As the founding member of this $1 million initiative, Elba has pledged $100,000 towards reaching this goal.

 

Elba has a deep and personal commitment to this initiative, having lost her own mother to a stroke when Elba was only 14 years of age.

 

To recognize Elba’s commitment and also to honour her late husband and architect, Marshall Haid, a plaque unveiling and naming of a room was held in the Active Living Centre at the University of Manitoba on October 26th.

 

As well, on October 25th, Elba hosted an event in her home for invited guests to meet with National Heart and Stroke CEO, Yves Savoie.

 

Heart & Stroke related diseases are the #1 Killer of women in Canada today, outpacing deaths from cancer by five times.

 

A woman dies from a heart and stroke-related disease every 20 minutes. Up until now, women have been under-researched and misdiagnosed in this regard. This is largely because of the fact that women lack awareness about the signs of a heart and stroke, since symptoms manifest themselves very differently for women than for men.

 

Thanks to the generous donation from Elba and others, Manitoba is second in fundraising for the Women’s Campaign across Canada – a campaign that Heart and Stroke hopes can change these alarming statistics.

 

As Elba noted, “Women are misdiagnosed and under-researched and in leading the way to change this, Heart & Stroke is requiring that all research they fund includes sex and gender biased analysis and reporting as well as giving more support for the next generation of female researchers and scientists.”

 

Elba added, “I want to assist Heart & Stroke to save more of our loved ones from these devastating diseases. I’ve made a leadership gift of $100,000 to enable Heart & Stroke to raise awareness in Manitoba and I really encourage everyone to help in anyway they can.”  Elba believes that, “together we can make a difference” and “together we can save more women’s lives.”