Your Digest

Town hall date changed to Thursday, Oct. 27 at 3 p.m. ET

Due to scheduling conflicts, October’s live town hall will now be on Thursday, Oct. 27 at 3 p.m. ET. Graham will be joined by Andrew Pateman, VP for people, culture and performance and Judie Leach-Bennett, VP, general counsel and corporate secretary. Submit your questions in advance to commnications@blood.ca with the subject line “TOWNHALL” or use this anonymous form. You can also submit questions live during the event after joining with the meeting link in your Outlook invitation. We’ve seen great engagement prior and during the town hall events. Due to the large number of questions received, it may not always be possible to get to every inquiry, however we strive to provide responses through Your Digest, Connect or by emailing you directly if a name is included with the question.

Register for Building Inclusive Workplaces on Oct. 28

An inclusive workplace is an environment that actively promotes a sense of belonging and makes every employee feel valued. On Oct. 28 (12–1:30 p.m. ET), Dr. Yasmin Razack, chief diversity officer and Osayi Ogieva, DEI manager, will facilitate a workshop to help employees examine the systemic barriers and challenges to achieving a truly diverse, equitable and inclusive workplace. Building inclusive workplaces will help participants gain a deeper understanding of how to become a strong ally and how to foster a psychologically safe workplace. Register here.

Question of the day

Regardless of whether jobs are lost or gained, how can we justify partnering with a private company that sources its plasma from the most vulnerable of Canadians?

Canadian Blood Services is responsible for ensuring the security of supply of needed blood and plasma products. There is a global shortage of immunoglobulins and the plasma needed to make them. As the national blood operator, it’s our job to make sure patients in Canada continue to have access to the lifesaving products they count on.

With this agreement, more plasma will be collected in Canada and manufactured into immunoglobulins through Canada’s first end-to-end supply chain, exclusively for patients in this country. This agreement is part of our blueprint to bring greater security to Canada’s supply of plasma and immunoglobulins so that we can reduce our dependency on the global market and protect patients in Canada.

It is important to recognize the commercial plasma collections industry has been expanding for several years in provinces where it is allowed, and without controls on where commercial collection sites are located. Under this agreement, Canadian Blood Services will have control of where Grifols can collect plasma and will approve where they can open their centres in Canada. This model is quite different than that of other countries where publicly funded and commercial plasma collection models exist side by side, which can create local competition for donors.