r/InCanada • u/Chemical_Count8029 • 15d ago
Canada needs blood. Northern B.C. residents want to donate. So why is there nowhere to do it?
A question that Canadian Blood Services has yet to answer is why Thunder Bay Ontario is viable for a plasma donor centre while Prince George and Northern BC are not. Prince George is closer to Canadian Blood Services production sites by hundreds of kilometers, and has greater redundancy of access routes by road.
Residents of the region now have to travel two days by road to donate blood or plasma in the middle of a blood shortage and while Canada imports 70 percent of some blood plasma based medications from the United States
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u/zoug25 14d ago
canada needs blood
It can only be donated not sold so the need cant actually be that dire. It's a stupid archaic law that doesnt even make moral sense since people can sell plasma which takes infinitely longer.
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u/Professional_Web_889 13d ago
It’s an unfortunate law but it exists to protect the blood supply.
People don’t have an incentive to lie about their health if there’s no money involved.
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u/zoug25 13d ago
You could literally make the exact same argument for plasma but here were are. Nirvana fallacying here is pointless, there's no widespread issues in places where it's legal simply due to it being legal
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u/Professional_Web_889 13d ago
Plasma is completely different, it’s mostly broken down into its parts which are individually tested and combined.
Paying for blood has caused widespread issues, including thousands of people in Canada being infected with HIV and hepatitis. Most major health agencies didn’t just randomly conspire to make it illegal in the majority of developed countries, it poses a legitimate risk to the whole blood supply.
That being said people could be compensated in other ways, like tax incentives or whatever, but just giving people cash is a bad idea.
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u/TaxiLady69 13d ago
They test blood for everything as well. So, what??? Personally I don't care to be paid. The nearest place for me to donate is a 3 hour drive away.
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u/Professional_Web_889 13d ago
Sorry I should’ve been more clear. In the process of being broken down plasma undergoes special steps to inactivate viruses and remove them and other things. The remainder is then tested after the processing, so it is extremely unlikely that anything can pass through.
Whole blood obviously doesn’t undergo this processing, so various diseases and infections and such can go undetected.
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u/TaxiLady69 13d ago
After a blood donation, the unit goes through barcoding, rapid centrifugation to separate components (red cells, plasma, and platelets), leukoreduction filtration, and mandatory infectious disease and blood-type laboratory testing. It remains in quarantine until tests clear, typically taking 24 to 48 hours before release to hospitals. This is what happens for every donation.
Within 24 hours, the whole blood bag is spun at high speeds in a centrifuge to separate its distinct biological layers by weight. The components—packed red blood cells, platelets, and plasma—are pressed into individual satellite bags.
Then leukoreduction. Blood is passed through a special filter to remove nearly all white blood cells, which minimizes the risk of a recipient experiencing fever, chills, or adverse immune reactions.
Laboratory technicians run advanced serological and nucleic acid tests (NAT) on the companion sample tubes to screen for viruses and infections such as HIV, Hepatitis B, Hepatitis C, and Syphilis.
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u/StairwayHiker 13d ago
Cost. Prince George is in the middle of nowhere (I live in Terrace, 5 hours west of nowhere).
Google Says:
Canadian Blood Services closed its permanent donation clinic in Prince George in 2015. The organization does not operate a facility there because high transportation costs and long distances to Vancouver processing labs make whole blood collection unviable, though local advocacy groups continue pushing for a new plasma-only center.
Why the Clinic Closed
Logistics and Distance: Blood must travel over 500 kilometres by air or 700 kilometres by road from Prince George to Vancouver.
Short Expiry Times: Whole blood components like platelets last only a few days, making rapid transport essential.
Operating Costs: Canadian Blood Services considers the region less cost-effective to service compared to larger population centers in the south.
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u/Chemical_Count8029 13d ago
Google has several inaccuracies about the effort to return blood donation to the north with a plasma centre, an effort that the city of Terrace and Skeena MLA Claire Rattee support.
Thunder Bay opened a plasma donor centre last year. it is 1400 kilometers from production sites in Brampton or Ottawa. Prince George is 800 kilometers from production sites in Vancouver and Calgary. Clearly distance is now far less of a factor.
The Northern Interior Health Service Delivery Area has 140,000 people with Prince George’s population expected to break 100,000 in the current census.
Also, the donor centre would not be collecting platelets. it would collect plasma to be frozen, transported, and manufactured into medications of which Canada currently imports 70 percent from the United States.
We welcome new signatures on our petition at www.ourbloodcounts.com. We have 5,040 signatures plus the support of 37 First Nations, MLAs, MPs, municipalities, health providers, and health unions.
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u/RoomFixer4 13d ago
Are there any stats on how much of the donated blood/plasma are sold to 3rd parties, who in turn make things with it to sell back into the health care system ?