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VIA Rail Canada announced Wednesday that it will provide free train travel for patients of Children’s Hospital at London Health Sciences Centre (LHSC) who travel to the hospital as well as other specialized paediatric centres for treatment.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The rail company is collaborating with Children’s Health Foundation on the initiative, which the company says marks the start of a “first-of-its-kind partnership in Canada.”<\/p>\n
Philippe Normand, a spokesperson for the company, said every family’s journey is different, but when a child needs care, getting there should never add to the weight they already carry.<\/p>\n
“Moving families that need care to hospital, for us, it’s truly inspiring,” Normand told journalists at a news conference.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
The initiative is made possible through a three-year commitment from VIA Rail, which will support families travelling from across Ontario \u2014 “removing a significant barrier to care for those who already face the emotional and financial strain of a child’s serious illness,” the new partners said in a news release.<\/p>\n
“We are in discussion with other organizations to see if we could repeat the same model across the country,” Normand said.<\/p>\n
‘It gives some peace of mind’<\/p>\n
Elizabeth and Jake Doerksen, whose five-year-old son Oakley was diagnosed before birth with a rare condition called CODAS Syndrome, with only a two per cent survival rate, welcomed the announcement.<\/p>\n
The parents say Oakley has faced a complex medical journey, including multiple diagnoses and ongoing health challenges.\u00a0<\/p>\n
![\"Elizabeth](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/1777535828_370_default.jpg\")
Elizabeth and Jake Doerksen, with their five-year-old son Oakley. (Dalson Chen\/CBC)<\/p>\n
The family, from Leamington, Ont., travels to Children’s Hospital in London several times a month, and more recently, to Montreal for specialized care.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“We were very excited because we had talked about it a few times. We’re like, it would be so handy to be able to just take a train.” Elizabeth said.<\/p>\n
“So, when we got the call that this was part of the plan, we were thrilled.”<\/p>\n
Additionally, she said the complimentary train travel will make life less stressful and help make it possible to spend more time with their son.<\/p>\n
“I feel like as parents, when you’re driving and the weather is stressful and the kids are crying, it just makes the travel so much harder, so, it gives some peace of mind.”<\/p>\n
VIA Rail’s leadership and generosity will have a profound impact on the families we support.- Tim Tribe, VP of philanthropy, Children’s Health Foundation<\/p>\n
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.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Tim Tribe, vice-president of philanthropy at Children’s Health Foundation, said the partnership represents more than transportation \u2014 it represents access, equity, and compassion.<\/p>\n
VIA Rail offering vouchers to families<\/p>\n
He said about 60,000 children visit Children’s Hospital in London each year, while noting that the hospital serves an area that stretches from Kitchener-Waterloo to the Windsor border and up to the Manitoba border.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“Almost 57 per cent of the kids that actually come to the hospital live outside of London [including] 3,500 children from Windsor-Essex,” he said.<\/p>\n
“What we’ve arranged with VIA is that they’re offering vouchers to families, and the families can access those by calling and contacting the Pediatric Family Resource Centre at Children’s Hospital.”\u00a0<\/p>\n
Tribe said the goal is to make sure “accessing care for the child that needs care at Children’s is as easy as possible when they have to make that trip.”<\/p>\n
“We know that when families don’t have to worry about how they’ll get to care, it changes everything. VIA Rail’s leadership and generosity will have a profound impact on the families we support,” Tribe said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to this article Estimated 4 minutes The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":404634,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[134,527,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-404633","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-health","tag-healthcare","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/404633","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=404633"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/404633\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/404634"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=404633"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=404633"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=404633"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}