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Canadian Blood Services is a Canadian nonprofit charitable organization. It serves as Canada’s primary national blood authority (outside Quebec, which has its own provincial service called Héma-Québec). Canadian Blood Services provides blood and plasma, as well as transfusion and stem cell registry services throughout the country. The organization collaborates closely with its Quebec counterpart, sharing blood products, when necessary, as well as regularly sharing insights, information and data. Canadian Blood Services also maintains a national organ transplant registry.
Canadian Blood Services Donation
Photo of donor Nora Milne at the Canadian Blood Services donation clinic on College Street in Toronto, Ontario, 26 May 2015.
(Keith Beaty/Toronto Star via Getty Images)
Background
The creation of Canadian Blood Services was one of the major consequences of Canada’s tainted blood scandal of the 1980s. Approximately 2,000 Canadians contracted HIV, and another 30,000 were infected with Hepatitis-C from contaminated blood products. As a result of the Krever Inquiry, the organizations that had previously managed Canada’s blood supply were either relieved of their responsibilities or disbanded. Canadian Blood Services came into existence in 1998 to replace those organizations found to have been implicated in the tainted blood scandal.
The final report of the Krever Inquiry set the operating parameters, guiding principles and purpose of the new Canadian Blood Services. These include assuring the safety of Canada’s blood supply, which is considered a public resource vital to the proper functioning of Canada’s health-care system. These principles also recommended ensuring the maintenance of an adequate supply, encouraging public donations, and refraining from purchasing blood.
Funding
Canadian Blood Services was created by a memorandum of understanding between the federal, provincial and territorial governments. The organization receives its funding primarily from the provincial and territorial governments, excluding Quebec. (See also Héma-Québec.)
Services
Canadian Blood Services focuses on the following key areas:
- Blood: including collecting, testing and manufacturing blood and blood products such as platelets, red blood cells and plasma, as well as blood testing.
- Plasma: collected from unpaid volunteers in Canada and used to create protein plasma products, which are then distributed to hospitals across Canada.
- Stem cells: Canadian Blood Services creates stem cells, which are used to treat more than 80 different diseases and disorders.
- Organs and tissues: Canadian Blood Services maintains a national organ transplant registry and an interprovincial organ-sharing program.
