Grande Prairie will soon be the fifth city in Canada to keep blood on board its STARS air ambulances.
Edmonton, Calgary, Regina, and Saskatoon already carry blood, something that GP Base Director of Operations Greg Schmidt says could make a huge difference for patients.
“We’ve always had the ability to pick up blood and bring it out to patients as needed. Unfortunately, that’s always resulted in a delay as we would have had to land at the hospital and pick up blood or have blood transported to us. This allows us to have blood on our helicopter 24/7 and allows us to really provide blood to people at the point of injury or accident.”
Schmidt says they’ll have a cooler on board that can keep the blood cold for more than 48 hours.
They just need to make sure it’s rotated out with the blood bank on a regular basis so none is wasted.
Schmidt expects Grande Prairie to be ready in a couple weeks for the new year.