Ornge 'Blood on Board' program expands to London, Ont.

Ornge, Ontario’s provider of air ambulance and critical care transport services, and London Health Sciences Centre (LHSC) announced Wednesday the expansion of the Blood on Board program to the Forest City.

“This is a big step forward for trauma and injured patients within the London region with the expansion of our Blood on Board program to the London base,” explained Ornge Associate Medical Officer Dr. Michael Peddle.

He added, “It's our third base to come online within our organization. And what it means is, we're now able to bring blood to the trauma and injured patients in the field or when we're picking up patients from smaller hospitals to be able to deliver blood during transport.”

Ornge paramedics will have blood on the aircraft, allowing crews to launch without delay, and bringing blood products with them to communities by air and shortening administration time to patients in need.

“Some of the patients we encounter in small rural communities, oftentimes if we think that they need blood and they need blood before we can bring them to London to get blood...to the receiving hospital. We have to go to a smaller hospital to acquire blood to transfuse on route to the major center hospital like Hamilton or Toronto or London,” explained Andrew Hamilton, a critical care paramedic.

The blood will be supplied by LHSC, from the hospital’s blood bank according to John French, corporate executive for diagnostics at LHSC.

Ornge expanded its 'Blood on Board' program to London, Ont. on April 24, 2024. (Marek Sutherland/CTV News London)

“We will replace the blood every three days so we continually supply the blood and then the blood is returned to us. If it's unused, we would then use it [for] patients [at] our facility,” he explained. “So the blood does not go to waste.”

The collaboration between Ornge and LHSC launched on April 24 and has already been used to treat patients.

“We have used it twice already in the first week that we've been up and running for patients in our system that are local to London. Which is a really big like even just in one week, we've already used it twice,” Peddle said.

Ontario’s first Blood on Board program – a partnership between Ornge and Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre in Toronto – launched in 2021. Ornge previously expanded the Blood on Board program to Thunder Bay in April 2023 to enhance access to care for rural and remote patients.

More than 250 units of blood have been administered to over 120 patients since the launch of the program.

Hemorrhage is a leading cause of death in traumatically injured patients. Research shows that early blood transfusion can improve patient outcomes.

As warm weather approaches and ‘trauma season’ nears, Ornge and LHSC encourage anyone who is able to consider visiting a Canadian Blood Service donation centre to donate.