The London physician killed in a fatal crash Tuesday in the city’s northwest end is being remembered by colleagues as a man committed to the community who went above and beyond for his patients and those he worked with.
Dr. Agron Alija, 62, of London was pronounced dead in hospital on Tuesday after being fatally injured in a head-on crash on Fanshawe Park Road that left another motorist with serious injuries.
Police are still investigating the cause of the collision, which occurred around 8:25 a.m., just west of Pinnacle Parkway, a short drive around the corner from the Wonderland Road North clinic where Alija practiced as a family doctor.
“It is with heavy hearts that we share the passing of our esteemed colleague and dear friend, Dr. Agron Alija, who tragically passed away on October 21, 2025, following a traffic accident,” reads a Facebook post from Active Care Medical Centre, which housed Alija’s clinic.
“His kindness, dedication, and compassion touched the lives of many. He will be deeply missed by the staff and colleagues at his Family Medicine Practice clinic, as well as by all the health care provider teams at Active Care Medical Center.”
London police have asked that drivers who were in the area on Monday morning to come forward if they have dashcam or surveillance footage that could help with the investigation.
“He was, as we call him, our gentle giant,” said Dr. Monica Faria, a family doctor and emergency department physician who worked with Alija at Four Counties Health Services, a small rural hospital in Newbury, about 45 kilometres southwest of London.
Alija had been scheduled to work in the emergency department on Tuesday night, she said.
“He offered his care as a family doctor to many patients who went through that emergency department that didn’t have a doctor, and offered to help them the best he could,” she said.
“He was always there when somebody was sick and needed a shift covered, or when we were facing the very real crisis of sometimes having to possibly close the department, but he always kept the doors open. He was deeply committed to his colleagues, the community, and the patients he served.”
As an example of that commitment, she says Alija wouldn’t hesitate to ride in an ambulance to ensure a patient being transferred to Chatham, London or St. Thomas made it there safely. And when a difficult case came at shift change, he would stay to help and provide support.
“That community in Newbury, Glencoe, Wardsville, and those who worked with him, we’re in shock. We feel a hole,” Faria said. In addition to his work in London and Newbury, Faria says Alija had also spent time helping remote Northwest Territories communities.
“He’ll leave behind lots of memories, a legacy.”
Fanshawe Park Road West was closed to traffic Tuesday as police investigated the collision. (Kate Dubinski/CBC)
An associate professor at London’s Schulich School of Medicine and Dentistry, Alija became a certified doctor in Ontario in 2009, according to his College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario listing.
Alija had immigrated to Canada a decade earlier from Kosovo, where he had been working as a physician in Prishtina when the War in Kosovo began in 1998, a Carlton University profile says.
According to the non-profit The Artistè Foundation, Alija worked as a translator with the Kosovo Diplomatic Observer Mission, helping international observers monitor and document human rights abuses.
“I saw humanity at its worst and its best,” the foundation quotes him as saying.
Some 11,400 people, mostly ethnic Albanians, died during the war, which lasted from 1998 until 1999. A NATO bombing campaign forced Serbia to pull its troops out of Kosovo and to cede control of its former province to the United Nations and NATO.
When the NATO campaign began, Alija and his family sought refuge in Macedonia, where he helped interview refugees for the Canadian embassy. They later immigrated to Canada and settled in Hamilton, where for several years Alija wrote a column for the Hamilton Spectator.
In an online post written in Albanian, Artemis Malo, the ambassador of the Republic of Albania in Canada, offered her condolences to Alija’s family, describing him an “emblematic figure of the Albanian community in Canada,” who was a dedicated professional and a “man of noble spirit.”
The London chapter of the Albanian Canadian Society, where Dr. Alija was an active member, described his death as a profound loss in a post on its Facebook page, saying he leaves behind a wife and children. Alija’s daughter works as a doctor in Port Perry.
“Dr. Alija was a dedicated family physician and emergency doctor, admired for his professionalism, compassion, and unwavering commitment to his patients,” the post reads.
“Throughout his distinguished career, he saved countless lives and stood as a symbol of devotion to the noble calling of medicine.”
According to Active Care Medical Centre’s post, a funeral for Alija will be held at Forest Lawn Funeral Home and Cemetery on Monday, with a visitation of life from noon to 2 p.m., and burial at 2 p.m.
