Gélinas: Time to end experiment with for-profit blood brokers

QUEEN’S PARK – NDP Shadow Minister for Health MPP France Gélinas (Nickel Belt) is calling on Premier Doug Ford to cancel the licenses for Grifols plasma collection facilities in Ontario.

Yesterday, CBC News reported that two people have died after selling their plasma at Grifols’ for-profit Winnipeg collection centre. This comes less than a year after a patient brought a lawsuit alleging "non-reversible and permanent injuries" from the acute kidney injury caused by an equipment malfunction at the same site.

“The Krever Commission’s report into the tainted blood scandal of the 1980s concluded that blood should be treated as a public resource, not a commodity. Donors should not be paid for blood donations,” said MPP Gélinas. “When there is profit to be made, people cut corners and patients can get hurt or killed. Ontario’s Premier needs to act now to enforce Ontario’s Voluntary Blood Donations Act and cancel Grifols’ licenses to operate in Ontario. There is a cost-of-living crisis in Ontario, and desperate people may lose their lives to make a dollar selling their plasma.”

A 2022 partnership between Canadian Blood Services (CBS) and Grifols created a loophole that allowed Grifols to start paying donors in Ontario for their plasma.

“According to a hematologist’s quote in the story, ‘the probability of someone getting very seriously harmed by donating plasma is like getting struck by lightning,’ but this lightning has struck three times at Grifols plasma centers in Winnipeg in less than a year. This is what happens when the profit motive affects care,” Gélinas concluded.