Daily COVID-19 digest

Thank you for your participation: Thank you to everyone who was able to join Graham for the live Q&A today. We noticed that participation numbers were even higher than our last event — so we are happy to see employees are finding this initiative useful. If you couldn’t attend, you can access a recording of the event on your COVID-19 employee portal. Please let us know what you thought about the event by taking a moment to fill out this short survey (one minute). Your input is valuable and helps us improve upon the experience. Speaking of which, keep an eye out next week for details of our next live Q&A!

Stories from our frontline: During the pandemic, we’re bringing you stories of our employees who continue to work on the front lines. Marylee Dudgeon is a laboratory assistant in St. John’s, N.L. When we asked her how the pandemic has changed her work life, Marylee told us “I find coming to work during abnormal times gives me a sense of purpose and normalcy. It helps me to cope with what’s going on.” Read Marylee’s full story and the rest of our special series at blood.ca/stories.

Celebrating National Nurses Week: Thank you to our dedicated nurses at Canadian Blood Services and to RN’s throughout Canada who continue to do great work during the pandemic. Join us in celebrating National Nurses Week on social media by using the hashtags #NationalNursesWeek and #CanadasLifeline.

Question of the day: “How have we prepared centres across the country to start collecting convalescent plasma?”

We are leveraging the existing skills and experience of our team members who are involved in collecting plasma donations every day. With Health Canada’s approval of our clinical trial application, we are now moving forward on establishing a convalescent plasma collection program. We will start with small numbers in the first weeks, then scale up to approximately 40 donations per week.

Convalescent plasma collections started at our Vancouver and Toronto donor centres the week of April 27, and the program will grow to include other donor centres across Canada that have the capability to collect by apheresis. These donor centres are located in Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Saskatoon, Regina, Winnipeg, London, Hamilton, Toronto, Ottawa, Halifax, Saint John, Charlottetown and St. John’s.

A team with representatives from our Vancouver-based Blood4Research facility (formerly known as NetCAD), plasma operations and integrated supply chain planning is working with the donor centres to ensure that we are able to supply convalescent plasma while still meeting patient’s needs for blood and blood products. Visit your COVID-19 employee portal to learn more.

About the daily digest

This daily digest will highlight the latest policy and employee support measures, resources to help you manage our new reality and original content like articles and videos to remind us that what we do matters. Things are moving quickly, so you can expect to hear from us daily. No access to email? No problem — all this information and more can be found on blood.ca/employees from any device, no login required.

Click here to read past editions of the daily digest.

Have questions? Check out blood.ca/employees or email us at communications@blood.ca.