VIA Rail Canada offering free train travel to Windsor-Essex patients of children’s hospitals

Via Rail is now offering free transportation to patients of Children’s Hospitals. CTV Windsor’s Stefanie Masotti reports.

Windsor-Essex families who need to travel to Children’s Hospital in London or even outside the province for life-saving care are getting a helping hand from VIA Rail Canada.

The Children’s Health Foundation and VIA Rail Canada announced Wednesday at the VIA Rail train station in Windsor that complimentary train travel will be provided to patients of Children’s Hospital in London who travel there and to other specialized paediatric centres for treatment.

It’s being called a first-of-its-kind partnership.

One of the families who will benefit from the program is Lisa and Jake Doerksen of Leamington, whose five-year-old son, Oakley, was diagnosed before birth with a rare condition called Codas syndrome, a multisystem disorder, which came with a two per cent survival rate.

Since he was born, Oakley has needed to travel to Children’s Hospital in London several times a month and, more recently, to Montreal for treatments, surgery, and specialized care.

Lisa Doerksen says Oakley is the third known survivor in the world with his condition.

“The last few months especially, we’ve been going to Montreal every month, and then on top of that, we go to London four to five times a month,” she said.

“Some months more, some months less, but on average it would be four or five times we leave.”

Doerksen says there’s a lot of stress with all the appointments combined with the travel and driving for hours, sometimes in bad weather.

“We do a lot of follow-ups, a lot of surgery, and a lot of anesthesia. There are overnight stays that happen pretty often. We pack, prep, and drive out for a couple of days; especially with Montreal recently, it turns into a two-day trip but ends up being a five- to seven-day trip,” she said.

Doerksen says this will let them just focus on the kids and not the road, plus it takes away some of the financial burden.

“On average, to Montreal and back, it’s been around $400 to $500 with food, fuel, and a hotel. That’s on a shorter trip, but there have been times we’ve spent $700 to $800 on a trip because it’s been extended with us expecting it to be,” she said.

Vice President of Philanthropy at Children’s Health Foundation Tim Tribe says that 60,000 kids come through the Children’s Hospital in London each year.

“Almost 57 per cent of the kids that actually come to the hospital live outside of London. 3,500 children from Windsor-Essex come to the hospital every year, and they’re making, as you heard from Lisa, multiple journeys sometimes in a year to come to the hospital for their child’s care,” he said.

Children’s Hospital in London serves as a paediatric referral centre across Ontario, supporting a large geographic catchment area that includes communities like Windsor-Essex, where many families must travel significant distances for specialized care such as cancer treatment, surgery, and rare disease management.

The program is part of a three-year commitment from VIA Rail Canada, which is looking to eventually expand the program to other areas of the country.

Families will be able to access this support through the Paediatric Family Resource Centre at Children’s Hospital, LHSC.