Thanksgiving Day Race Runners Fund Life-saving Trauma Equipment for Guelph General Hospital

With thanks to all those in our community who contributed or participated in last year’s Thanksgiving Day Races, Guelph General Hospital was able to purchase a new Rapid Infuser which arrived this past Spring.

“We are fortunate to have this piece of equipment that can make the difference between life and death in a trauma or illness due to blood loss. The donors made this happen for us,” said Lisa Groulx, Emergency Department Clinical Educator at GGH.

The Rapid Infuser helps trauma patients by being able to quickly replace lost fluids and blood. The unit warms the fluids first to avoid cooling the patient too much which helps prevent a variety of further problems.

The infuser replaced an older one that was at the end of its life cycle. With technology playing a major role in the delivery of patient care in today’s modern Hospital the new infuser arrived with many patient care advances.

The new infuser is more rapid at delivering fluids. It can also discharge 15 units of blood products without needing a tubing change. That’s a real advance from the old one. Whenever a piece of equipment demands less time to operate, it means caregivers have more time to give to patients.

It also came with advanced safety features. A significant one is an alert triggered by air in the tubing. While GGH has a safety protocol of squeezing the air out of bags of fluid, this feature acts as a double safety.

The Thanksgiving Day Races have been taking place in Guelph since 1894, but in 2012, Race Director John Marsden of Speed River Timing adopted Guelph General Hospital as the beneficiary.

The Races take place every Thanksgiving Day Monday at Exhibition Park and all pledge proceeds help fund essential patient care equipment like this new infuser. To learn more about the races, visit guelphvictors.ca.